WIT, 

WISDOM, ELOQUENCE, 



AND 



Great Speeches 



OF 



Col. R, G. Ingersoll' 



INCLUDING ELOQUENT EXTRACTS, V/ITTY, WISE, PUNGENT, TRUTH- 
FUL SAYINGS AND FULL REPORTS OF THE GREAT SPEECHES 
OF THIS CELEBRATED MAN, TOGETHER WITH THE 
FUNERAL ORATION AT HIS BROTHER'S GRAVE. 



EDITED BY 

J. B. McCLURE. 



CHICAGO: 
RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS, 

i8Si. 






Kntered according- to Act of Congress, in the year LSSl, by 
J. B. ItlcClure A. K. S. KltodcK, 

In ihe Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washiu;,'^ton. 



1.107 



J.S 



WIT, WISDOM, ELOPENCE, 

AND GREAT SPEECHES OF 

COL. R 6. INGERSOLL. 




The general public are quite familiar with the wit, 
wisdom, and eloquence of Col. K. G. Ingersoll. He cer- 
tainly ranks among the first of living orators, and many of 
jis sayings are as remarkable for terseness, pungency, and 
ruthfulness, as can be found, perhaps, in the English 
congue. The Compiler presents in this volume what he 
has selected with great care, and what he believes to be the 
wittiest, wisest and most eloquent words of this noted man. 

The reader will also find a number of the Colonel's 
most eloquent and celebrated speeches given in full, includ- 
ing the remarkable funeral oration at his brother's grave. 

J. B. McCLUKE. 

Chicago, June 20, 1S81. 




A Countn- Full of Kings, . . - - 

A Dark Picture, . . . - - 

Admit Your Faults, . - - - - 

A Dream (Part II), - - 

American Labor, - . - . . 

America's Coming Greatness, . - . . 

A Michigan Stor)', _ . . . . 

Amusing Remarks About Money, . . . 

Amusing Remarks About Getting Up Early in the Morning (^Fari II) 
An Amusing and Instructive Speech (in full) to the Farmers on Agri- 
culture (Part II) - 
An Amusing Story, . - - . - 
A Nation (Part II), 

A Panic Picture, . . . - . 

A Patent Lecture, . - - . . 

A Picture, ...... 

A Revelation and Revolution (Part II), - - = 

A Scathing Denunciation on Alcohol, . . - 

At His Brother's Grave (Part II). .... 

B 

Beefsteak— How the Colonel Cooks It, 

Best o[ This Earth (Part II), . - . . 

Bright Money, .--.-_ 



PACK 

6S 

79 

20 

45 
40 
82 

49 
70 
13 

3 
71 
56 
74 
30 
56 
43 
12 
65 

42 

7 

73 



Celebrated Speech (in full) to the Veteran Soldiers at Indianapolis 

(Part II). - - - - - 27 

Civilizing Influence of W oman, ... 28 

E 

Eloquent Defense of Good Government, - - - 54 

6 



cox TEXTS. 7 

F PAGE. 

Foneral Oration at his Brother's Grave (Part II), - -65 

Future of America (Part II), . - - . 63 

G 

Good Clothes, - - - - - - 2S 

Good Dollars and Good Times, ... 57 

Great Speech on the Declaration of Independence (Part II), - 47 

H 

Honest Money, _ - - - . 53 

"Honor Brights," - - - - - 15 

How a Man Should Treat His Wife and Children (Part II), - 21 

How Ingersoll Hopes to End Ilis Days, - - - 43 

How the Colonel Cooks Beefsteak, - - - 42 

How They Did When Ingersoll was a Farmer, - - 21 

Human Happiness, . - . . - g 

I 

Ideal Farmer (Part II), - - - - - 6 

Illinois, ------ 32 

Industry, - - - - - - 27 

Influence of a Home, - - - - ll 

Influence of Woman, - - - - - 28 

Ingersoll Believes in the " Fashions," . - - 28 

Ingersoll on Alcohol, - - - - - 12 

Inge: soil on Cookery (Part II), - - - 22 

IngersoUisms, - - - - - -15 

Ingersollisms, ----- 33 

IngersoUisms, - - - - - - 45 

Ingersollisms, ----- 61 

Ingersollisms, - - - - - - 85 

Ingersoll's Apt Words on State Lines," . - - 58 

Ingersoll's Big Horse Race (Part II). - - - 43 

Ingersoll's Eloquent Vision - - - - 37 

Ingersoll's Faith in American Labor, - - - 40 

Ingersoll's History of State Sovereignty. . . 78 

L 

Love and Joy - - - - - - 29 

Love and Life, - - - - - 15 

Love IS. Glory, - - - - - - 10 

Liberty of Mind, ----- 23 

Liberty or Death (Part II), - - - - 58 

Little Ones, ... - - 45 



8 CONTENTS. 

Marriage, - - - - - - 15 

Money and Yardsticks, _ - , - 72 

More Solid Shot (Part II), - - - - 36 

O 

Oration at His Brother's Grave (Part II), , o 65 

P 

Protection, - - - - - - 76 

R 

Reasons Why the Colonel is Not a Democrat (Part II), - 27 

Repudiation, _ . . _ . 75 

Rise of the Republic (Part II), - - - - 5i 

S 

Sarcastic Words on State Rights, - . - 58 

Sohd Comfort (Part II), - - - - - 25 

Some Laughable Remarks About Money, - - 70 

Speech (in full) to the Veteran Soldiers at Indianapolis (Part II), 27 

Speech (in full) on the Declaration of Independence (Fart II), 47 

Speech (in full) to the Farmers on Farming (Part II), - - 3 

Speech (in full) at the Banquet t)f the Army of the rennessee, 50 

Speech (in full) Nominating Blaine for President, - .65 

Speech (in full) to the Volunteer Soldiers, . - 50 

Speech (in full) at His Brother's Funeral (Part II), - - 65 

T 

The Colonel's Party, - - - - - 42 

The Happy Farmer, - - . - . 24 

The Happy Home (Part II), - - - - 23 

The Independent Man, - - - - 40 

The Kingdom of Kindness, - - . - 25 

The Man that Ingersoll Hates, - - - 26 

The Past Rises Before Me Like a Dream, - . - 37 

The Struggle for Liberty, - - - - 81 

The Tariff, - - - - . - 77 

Thirty-three Dozen Eggs for One Dollar (Part II), - 16 

W 

What a Dollar Can Do, - - . - . 41 

What the Colonel Has Seen and What He Wants to See, - 80 

What We Want To-day (Part II), - - - 61 

W^hy the Colonel is a RepubHcan (Part II), - - - 29 

What tha Railroads Have Done (Part II) - - 16 



INGERSOLL'S 

WIT, WISDOM, ELOQUENCE, 



GREAT SPEECHES. 

Human Happiness. 

I tell you I had rather make somebody happy ; I would 
rather have the love of somebody ; I would rather go to 
the forest, far away, and build me a little cabin— bu'\d it 
myself and daub it with mud, and live there with mj wHq 




^^^^.^T^:^ 



CABIN HOME OF LINCOLN'S PARENTS. 

and children ; I had rather go there and live by myself— 
our little family — and have a little path that led down to 
the spring, where the water bubbled out day and night like 
a little poem from the heart of the earth ; a little hut with 
some hollyhocks at the corner, with their bannered bosoms 



O COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

pen to the sun, and with the thrush in the air, h'ke a song 
f joy in the morning ; I would ra-ther live there und have 
)me lattice work across the window, so that the sunlight 
ould fall checkered on the baby in the cradle ; I would 
ither live there and have my soul erect and free, than to 
ve in a palace of gold and wear the crown of imperial 
Dwer and know that my soul was sliojy with hypocrisy. 
It is not necessary to be rich and great and powerful in 
rder to be happy. If you will treat your wife like a 
)lendid flower, she will fill your life with a perfume and 
ith joy. I believe in the democracy of the fireside ; I 
3lieve in the republicanism of home ; in the equality of 
lan and woman ; in the equality of husband and wife. 



Love vs. Glory. 

A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napo- 
on — a magnificent tomb of gilt aud gold, fit almost for a 
3ad deity — and gazed upon the sarcophagus of black Egyp- 
an marble, where rest at last the ashes of the restless man. 
leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career 
■ the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him 
alking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide 
-I saw him at Toulon — I saw him putting down the mob 

the streets of Paris — I saw him at the head of the army 
;' Italy — I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the 
i-color in his hand — I saw him in Egypt in the shadows 
' the pyramids — I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle 
le eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw 
m at Marengo — at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in 
ussia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of 
le wild blast scattered his legions like Winter's withered 
aves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster — driven 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 1 1 

by a million bayonets back upon Paris — clutched like a wild 
beast — banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an 
empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the 
frightful field of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined 
to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him 
at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing 
out upon the sad and solemn sea. I thought of the orphans 
and widows he had made — of the tears that had been shed 
for his glory, and of the only wonian who ever loved him, 
pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And 
I said I would rather have been a French peasant, and 
worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut 
with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing 
purple in the kisses of the Autumn sun. I would rather 
have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my 
side, knitting as the day died out of the sky — with my 
children upen my knees and their arms about me ; X would 
rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless 
silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that im- 
perial impersonation of force and murder known as Napo- 
leon the Great. And so I would, ten thousand thousand 
times. 



Influence of a Home. 



There can be no such thing in the highest sense as a 
home, unless you own it. There must be an incentive to 
plant trees, to beautify the grounds, to preserve and im- 
prove. It elevates a man to own a home. It gives a cer- 
tain independence, a force of character that is obtained in 
no other way. A man without a home feels like a passen- 
ger. There is in such a man a little of the vagrant. Homes 
make patriots. He who has sat by his own fireside with 



1 2 COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

wife and children, will defend it. When he hears the word 
country pronounced, he thinks of his home. 

Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a mus- 
ket in defense of a boarding-house. 

The prosperity and glory of our country depend upon 
the number of our people who are the owners of homes. 
Around the fireside cluster the private and the public vir- 
tues of our race. Raise your sons to be independent through 
labor — to pursue some business for themselves, and upon 
their own account — to be self-reliant — to act upon their 
own responsibility, and to take the consequences like men. 
Teach them above all things to be good, true and faithful 
husbands — winners of love, and builders of homes. 



Ingersoll on Alcohol — A Scathing Denunciation. 

Colonel Ingersoll, in speaking to a jury in a case which 
involved the manufacture of alcohol, used the following 
eloquent language : 

"I am aware that there is a prejudice against any man 
engaged in the manufacture of alcohol. I believe that 
from the time it issues from the coiled and poisonous worm 
in the distillery until it empties into the hell of death, dis- 
honor and crime, that it demoralizes everybody that touches 
it, from its source to where it ends. I do not believe any- 
body can contemplate the subject without becoming preju- 
diced against that liquor crime. 

*'A11 we have to do, gentlemen, is to think of the wrecks 
on either bank of the stream of death ; of the suicides, of 
the insanity ; of the poverty, of the ignorance, of the des- 
titution ; of the little children tugging at the faded and 
weary breasts of weeping and despairing wives, asking for 
bread ; of the talented men of genius it has wrecked, the 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 1 5 



IngersoU's "Honor Brights" — Love and Life. 

— Without the family relation is tender, pure and true, 
civilization is impossible. 

— I believe in marriage. If there is any Heaven u])on 
earth, it is in the family by the fireside. 

— The happy man is the successful man; and the man 
who makes somebody else happy, is a happy man. 

— I believe marriage should be a perfect and equal part- 
nership. I do not like a man who thinks he is boss. 

— If there is a man I detest, it is the man who thinks lie 
is the head of the family — the man who thinks he is ''boss." 

— I tell you this is a pretty good world, if we only love 
somebody in it; if we only make somebody happy; if we 
are only honor bright in it. 

'^I believe in marriage, and I hold in utter contempt th§ 



-I 6 COL. INGERSOLLS WIT, 

opinions of long-haired men and short-haired women who 
denounce the institution of marriage. 

— I do not Hke a man who thinks he has got authority, 
and that the woman belongs to him — that wants for his wife 
a slave. I would not have a slave for my wife. 

— Love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, of 
interest on the outlay. L(we is the only thing in which the 
height of extravagance is the last degree of economy. 

— The man who has the love of one splendid woman is 
a rich man. Joy is wealth, and love is the legal tender of 
the soul ! Love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, 
to borrower and lender both. 

— I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling 
— a man who is ''boss," who is going to govern in his fam- 
ily; and when he speaks let all the rest of them be still ; 
some mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. 
Do you know I dislike this man ? 

--The man that has gained the love of one good, splen- 
did, })ure woman, his lifo has been a success, no matter if 
he dies in the ditch; and if he gets to be a crowned mon- 
arch of the world, and never had the love of one splendid 
heart, his life has been an ashen vapor. 

— Now, my friends, it seems to me that the woman is 
the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have, and 
one more, and that is the right to be protected. That's 
my doctrine. You are married ; try and make the woman 
you love happy ; try and make the man you love happy. 

— If you are the grand emperor of the world, you had 
better be the grand emperor of one loving and tender heart, 
and she the grand empress of yours. The man who has 
really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do 
not care if he dies a beggar, his life has been a success 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. I 7 

— Imagine a young man and a young woman courting, 
walking out in the moonlight and the nightingale singing a 
song of pain and love, as though the thorn touched her 
heart — imagine them stopping there in the moonlight and 
starlight and song, and saying, "Now, here, let's settle 
who's 'boss !' " 

— I have known men that would trust a woman with their 
heart (if you call that thing which pushes their blood 
around, a heart), and with their honor (if you call that fear 
of getting into the penitentiary, honor) ; I have known 
men that would trust that heart and that honor with a 
woman, but not their pocket-book — not a dollar bill. 

— I have not the slightest respect for the ideas of those 
short-haired women and long-haired men who denounce 
the institution of the family; who denounce the institution 
of marriage ; but 1 hold in greater contempt the husband 
who would enslave his wife. I hold in greater contempt 
the man who is anythir in his family except love and ten- 
derness and kindness. 

— What is wealth compared with the love of a splendid 
woman? People tell me that it is very good doctrine for 
rich folks, but it won't do for poor folks. I tell you that 
there is more love in the huts and homes of the poor, than 
in the mansions of the rich ; and the meanest hut with love 
in it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without that 
is a den only fit for wild beasts. 

— Let me say right here, I regard marriage as the holiest 
institution among men. Without the fireside there is no 
human advancement; without the family relation there is 
no life worth living. Every good government is made up 
of good families. The unit of government is the family, 
and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly 
devilish and infamous. 



I 8 COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

— Whoever marries simply for liiaiself will make a r«»v- 
take; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says, ^'I 
will make her happy," makes no mistake ; and so with the 
woman who says, "I will make him happy." There is 
only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody 
else so, and you can't be happy cross-lots ; you have got to 
go the regular turnpike road. 

— I say it took hundreds of years for woman to come 
from a state of slavery to marriage; and, ladies, the chains 
that were upon your necks and the bracelets that were put 
upon your arms were iron, and they have been changed by 
the touch of the wand of civilization, to shining, glittering 
gold. Woman came from a condition of abject slavery, 
and thousands and thousands are in that condition now. 

— Let me say right here — and I have thought a good 
deal about it — let me say right here, the grandest ambition 
that any man can possibly have, is to so live and so im- 
prove himself in heart and brain as to be worthy of the 
love of some splendid woman ; and the grandest ambition 
of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and ado- 
ration of some magnificent man. That is my idea, and 
there is no success in life without it. 

— I would not want the love of a woman that is not great 
enough, grand enough, and splendid enough to be free. 
I will never give to any woman my heart upon whom I 
afterwards would put chains. Do you know sometimes 
I think generosity is about the only virtue there is? How 
I do hate a man that has to be begged and importuned 
every minute for a few cents by his wife. "Give me a 
dollar?" "What did you do with that fifty cents I g^ve 
you last Christmas?" 

— When a man comes home let him come liome like a 
raj of light in the night bursting through the doors and 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 19 

illuminating the darkness. Wliat right has a man to assas- 
sinate jo}', and murder happiness in the sanctuary of love 
— to be a cross man, a peevish man? Is that the way he 
courted ? Was there always something ailing him ? Was 
he too nervous to hear her speak ? When I see a man of 
that kind I am always sorry that doctors know so much 
about preserving life as they do. 

— I tell you women are more prudent than men. I tell 
you, as a rule, women are more truthful than men. I tell 
you that women are more faithful than men — ten times as 
faithful as man. I never saw a man pursue his wife into 
the very ditch and dust of degradation and take her in his 
arms. 1 no\^er saw a man stand at the shore where she 
had been morally wrecked, waiting for the waves to bring 
back even her corpse to his arms ; but I have seen woman 
do it. I have seen woman with her white arms lift man 
from the mire of degradation, and hold him to her bosom 
as though he were an angel. 

— It is not necessary to be rich in order to be happy. 
It is only necessary to be in love. Thousands of men go 
to college and get a certificate that they have an education, 
and that certificate is in Latin, and they stop studying, and 
in two years to save their life they couldn't read the certifi- 
cate they got. It is mostly so in marrying. They stop 
courting when they get married. They think, we have 
won her and that is enough. Ah I the dififorence before 
and after! How well they look! How bright their eyes.! 
[low light their steps, and how full they were of generosity 
and laughter ! I tell you a man should consider himself 
in good luck if a woman loves him when he is doing his 
level best! Good luck! Good luck! And another thing 
that is the cause of much trouble is that people don't count 
fairly. They do what they call putting their best foot for- 



20 COL. INGERS(3LL S WIT, 

ward. That, means lying a little. I say put yonr worst 
foot forward. If you have got any faults, admit them. If 
you drink, say so and quit it. If you chew and smoke and 
swear, say so. If some of your kindred are not very good 
peoj)le, say so. If you have had two or tliree that died on 
the gallows, or that ought to have died there, say so. Tell 
all your faults, and if after she knows your faults she says 
she will have you, you have got the dead wood on that 
woman forever. I claim that there should be perfect 






'^- 

% 





BIRTHPLACE OF GENERAL GRANT. 



equality in the home, and I cannot think of anything nearer 
Heaven than a home where there is true republicanism and 
true democracy at the fireside. All are equal. And then, 
do you know, I like to think that love is eternal; that if 
you really love the woman, for her sake, you will love her 
no matter what she may do ; that if she really loves you, 
for your sake, the same — if you really love her you will 
always see the face you loved and won. 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 21 

How They Did when IngersoU was a Farmer. 

When I was a fanner tbej used to liaul wheat two hun- 
dred miles in a wagon and sell it for thirty-live cents a 
bushel. They would bring home about three hundred feet 
of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrQx of salt, and a 
cook stove that never would draw and Gver did bake. 

In those blessed days the peo' ' .vedon corn and bacon. 
Cooking was an unknown a* , Eating was a necessity, 
not a pleasure. It was hard work for the cook to keep on 
good terms even with hunger. 

The rain held the roofs in perfect contempt, and the 
snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They had 
no barns. The horses were kept in rail pens surrounded 
with straw. Long before spring the sides would be eaten 
away and nothing but roofs would be left. Fo^is-fmel* 
When the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, 
it took all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them 
to prevent actual starvation. 

In those times farmers thought the best place for the pig- 
pen v/as immediately in front of the house. There is noth- 
ing like sociability. 

Women were supposed to know the art of making fires 
without fuel. The wood-pile consisted, as a general thing, 
of one log, upon which an axe or t^vo had been worn out 
in vain. There was nothing to kindle a fire with. Pickets 
were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken from 
the house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kind- 
ling. Everything was done in the hardest way. Every- 
thing about the farm was disagreeable, l^othing was kept 
in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood in 
the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the iields. There 
was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. It was 
(ill labor and weariness and vexation of spirit. The crops 



22 COL. INGERSOLLS WIT, 

were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put in 
too late, or too early, or they were blown down^ or caught 
by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaii- 
en b3^ worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by 
gophers, or washed away by Hoods, or dried up by the sun, 
or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all run 
to vines, or tops, or straw, or cobs. And when in spite of 
all these accidents that lie in wait between the plow and 
the reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a 
high price was offered, then the roads would be impass- 
able. And when the roads got good, then the prices went 
^own. Everything worked together for evil. 

Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he would 
never cultivate the soil. The moment they arrived at the 
age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms 
and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted to be 
book-keepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance 
agents, lawj^ers, even preachers, anything to avoid the 
drudgery of the farm. Xearly every boy acquainted with 
the three R's — reading, writing and arithmetic — imagined 
that he had altogether more education than ought to be 
wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to 
get into some other business. Those who stayed upon the 
farm envied those who went away. 

A few years ago the times were prosperous, and the 
young men went to the cities to enjoy the fortunes that 
were waiting for them. They wanted to engage in some- 
thing that promised quick returns. They built railways, 
established banks and insurance companies. They specu- 
lated in stocks in Wall street, and gambled in grain at 
Chicago. They became rich. They lived in palaces. 
They rode in carriages. They pitied their poor brothers 
on the farms, and the poor brothers envied them. 

But time has brought its revenge. The farmers have seen 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 23 

the railroad president a bankrupt,, and tlie road in the 
hands of a receiver. They hiive seen tlie bank president 
abscond^ and tlie insurance company a wrecked and ruined 
fraud. (Tlie only solvent people^ as a class, the only _lD.de-. 
pendent people, are the tijlersjof th^ smh) r-; ,^ 



Liberty of Mind. 

I do not know what inventions are in the brain of the 
future; I do not know what garments of glory may he 
woven for the world in tlie loom of years to be; we are just 
on the edge of the great ocean of discovery. I do not 
know what is to be discovered ; I do not know what 
science will do for us. I do not know that science did 
just take a handful of sand and make the telescope, and 
with it read all the starry leaves of heaven; I know that 
science took the thunderbolts from the hands of Jupiter, 
and now the electric spark, freighted with thought and love, 
flashes under waves of the sea ;( r kn ow that science stole 
a tear f rom the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into 
steam, and created a giant that turns with tireless arms the 
countless wheels of toilj) I know that science broke the 
chains from human limbs and gave us instead the forces of 
nature for our slaves; I know that we have made the 
attraction of gravitation work for us; we have made the 
lightnings our messengers ; we have taken advantage of lire; 
and flames and wind and sea; these slaves have no backs 
to be whipped ; they have no hearts to be lacerated ; they 
have no children to be stolen, no cradles to be violated. I 
know that science has given us better houses ; I know it 
has given us better pictures and better books; I know it 
has given us better wives and better husbands, and more 
beautiful children. I know it has enriched a thousand-fold 



24 COL. INGERSOrXS WIT, 

our lives; and for that reason I am iii favor of intellectual 
liberty. 



^ 




:i 



The Happy Farmer. 




There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope 
of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can 
promise. A professional man is doomed some time to feel 
that his powers are waning. He is doomed to see younger 
and stronger men pass him in the race of life. He looks 
forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He will 
be last where once he was the first. But the farmer goes, 
^8 it were, into partnership with nature — he lives with trees 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 2 5 

and flowers — he breathes tlie sweet air of tlic fields. There 
is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. His 
nights are lilled with sleep and rest. He watches his flocks 
and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny slopes. 
He hears the ])leasant rain falling upon the waving corn, 
and the trees he planted in youth rustle above liini as he 
])lant8 others for the children yet to be. 

When I was a farmer it was not fashionable to set out 
trees, nor to ])lant vines. 

When you visited the farm you were not welcomed by 
flowers, and greeted by trees loaded with fruit. Yellow 
dogs came bounding over tJie tumbled fence like wild 
beasts. There is no sense — there is no profit in such a 
life. It is not living. The iarmers ought to beautify their 
homes. There should be trees and grass, and flowers and 
running vines. Everything should be kept in order; gates 
should be kept on their hinges, and about all there should 
be the pleasant air of thrift. In every house there should 
be a bath-room. The bath is a civih'zer, a refiner, a beau- 
tifier. VYiien you come from the fields, tired, covered with 
dust, nothing is so refreshing. Above all tilings, keep 
clean. It is not necessary to be a pig in order to raise one. 
In the cool of tiie evening, after a day in the field, put on 
clean clothes, take a seat under the trees, 'mid the perfume 
of fiowers, surrounded by your family, and you will know 
what it is to enjoy life like a gentleman. 



The Kingdom of Kindness. 

Above all, let every man treat his wife and children with 
infinite kindness. Give youv sons and dauj^hters every 
advantage within your i)ovver. In the air of kindness they 
will grow ab(nit you like flowers. They will fill your homes 



26 COL. INGERSOLLS WIT, 

with sunshine and all your years with joy. Do not try to 
rule by force. 

A blow from a parent leaves a scar on the soul. 1 should 
feel ashamed to die surrounded by children I hud whipped. 
Think of feeling upon your dying lips the kiss of a child 
you had struck. 

See to it that your wife has every convenience. Make 
her life worth living. Never allow her to become a servant. 
Wives, weary and worn ; mothers, wrinkled and bent be- 
fore their time, fill homes with grief and shame. If you 
are not able to hire help for your wives, help them your- 
selves. See that they have the best utensils to work with." 
Wome!i cann(^t create things by n.iagic. Have plenty of 
wood and coal — good cellars and plenty in them.- 



The Man that IngersoU Hates. 



A cross man I hate above all things. What right has ne 
to murder the sunshine of the day ? What riglit has he to 
assassinate the joy of life ? When you go home you ought 
to feel the light there is in tlie house ; if it is in the night 
it will burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate 
the darkness. It is just as well to go home a ray of sun- 
shine as an old, sour, cross cnrmuilgeon, who thinks he is 
the head of the family. Wise men think their mighty 
brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking 
about who will i)e alderman from the iifth ward ; they have 
been thinking about politics ; great and mighty questions 
have been engaging their minds; they have bought calico 
at eight cents or six, and want to sell it for seven. Think 
of the intellectual strain that must have been upon a man, 
and when he gets home everybody else in the house must 
look out for his comfort, A woman who has only taken 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 27 

care of five or six childreD, and one or two of them maybe 
sick, has been nursing them and singing to them, and taking 
care of them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the 
work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and ready to 
wait upon this great gentleman — the head of the family. I 
don't like him a bit ! 



Industry. 

We must get rid of "the idea that a little learning unfits 
one for work. There are hundreds of graduates of Yale 
and Harvard and other colleges, who are agents of sewing 
machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks, copyists, in short, 
performing a hundred varieties of menial service. They 
seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as work — 
anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an 
office, but they avoid farming as they would leprosy. 
Nearly every young man educated in this way is simply 
ruined. Such an education ought to be called ignorance. 
It js a tho uLsand times better to have common sense without 
education than education without the sense. Boys and girls 
should be educated to help themselves. They should be 
taught that it is disgraceful to be idle, and dishonorable to 
be useless. 

You can divide mankind into two classes ; the laborers 
and the idlers, the supporters and the supported, the lionest 
and tlie dishonest. Every man is dishonest who lives upon 
the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. 
All laborers should be brothers. The laborers should have 
equal rights before the world and before the law. And I 
want every farmer to consider every man who labors either 
with hand or brain as his brother. Until genius and labor 
formed a partnership there was no buch thing as prosperity 
among men. Every reaper and mower, every agricultural 



25 COL. INGERSOLLS WIT, 

implement, has elevated work of the farmer, and his voca- 
tion grows grander with every invention. In tlie olden 
time the agriculturist was ignorant ; he knew nothing of 
niadiinery, he was the slave of superstition. 



y 



Ingersoll Believes in Fashion, Good Clothes, Etc. 

I am a believer in fashion. ll is the duty of every 
wonum to make herself as beautiful and attractive as she 
possibly can. 

" Ilandsonie is as handsome does," but she is much 
handsomer if well dressed. Every man should look his 
very best. I am a believer in good clothes. The time 
never ought to come in this country when you can tell a 
farmer's daughter simply b}^ the gai-ments she wears. I sa}- 
to every girl and woman, no matter what the material of 
your dress nia}^ be, no matter how cheap and coarse it is, 
cut it and make it in the fishion. I believe in jewelry. 
Some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my judgment, 
wearing jewehy is the iirst evidence the barbarian gives of 
a wi.sh to be civilized. To adorn ourselves seems to be a 
part of our nature, and this desii'e scenes to be everywhere 
and in evervthino'. I have sometimes thought that the de- 
sire for beauty covers the earth with flowers. It is this 
desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the chamber of 
the shell, and gi res the biid its plumage and its song. Oh! 
daughters and wives if you would be loved, adorn your- 
selves — if you would be adored, be beautiful ! 



Civilizing Influence of Woman. 

I don't believe man ever came to any high station with- 
out woman. Tlier'^ has got to be some restraint, something 
to make you ])rudent, something to make you industrious. 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 29 

And in a country where you don't need any bed-qnilt biit 
a cloud, revolution is the normal condition of t!ie ])eople. 
You have got to liave the fireside; you have got to Ivave 
tlie home, and there by the fireside will grow and bloom 
the fruits of the human race. I recollect a while ago I was 
in Washington wlien they were trying to annex- Santo Do- 
mingo. They said : " We want to take in Santo Domingo." 
Says I : "We don't want it" " Why," said they, "it is 
the best climate the earth can produce. There is every- 
thing you want. " "Yes," said I, "but it won't produce 
men. We don't want it. We have got soil enough now. 
Take 5,000 ministers from New England, 5,000 presidents 
of colleges, and 5,000 solid business men and their fami- 
lies, and take them to Santo Domingo; and then you will 
see the effect of climate. The second generation you will 
see barefooted boys riding bareback on a mule, w^ith their 
hair sticking out of the top of their sombreros, with a 
rooster under each arm going to a cock-light on Sunday." 
You have got to have the soil ; you have got to have the 
climate, and y(m have got to have another thing — you have 
got to have the fireside. 



Love and Joy. 

It is not necessary to be great to be happy ; it is not 
necessary to be rich to be just and generous, and to have a 
heart filled with divine affection. No matter whether you 
are rich or poor, use your w^ife as though she were a splen- 
did creation, and she will fill your life with perfume and 
joy. And do you know it is a splendid thing for me to 
think that the woman you really love will never grow old 
to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the music 
of years, if you really love her, you will always see the 



30 COT.. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

face you loved and won. And u woman who really loves 
a man, does not see that he grows older; lie is not de- 
crepit; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always 
sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and 
heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think of 
all passions; love is eternal, and as Shakspeare says, "Al- 
though time with his sickle can rob ruby lips and sparkling 
eyes, let him reach as far as he can, he cannot quite touch 
lov^e, that reaches even to the end of the tomb." And to 
love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, 
and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grand- 
children, and the birds of joy and love will sing once more 
in the leatloss branches of age. I believe in the fireside. 
I believe in the democracy of home. I believe in the re- 
publicanism of the family. I believe in liberty and equality 
with those we love. 



A Short Patent Lecture. 

I despise a stingy num. I don't see how it is possible 
for a num to die worth tifty millioa^ of dollars or ten mil- 
lions of dollai's, in a city full of want, when he meets almost 
every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips 
of famine. How a num can withstand all that, and hold in 
the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty millions of dollars, 
is past my comprehension. I do not see how he can do it. 
I should not think he could do it any more than he could 
keep a pile of lumber where hundreds and thousands of 
men were drowning in the sea. I should not think he could 
do it. Do you know I have known men who would trust 
their wives with their hearts and their honor, but not with 
their pocketb(X>k ; not with a dollar. When I see a man 
of that kind I always think he knows which of these articles 
is the most valuable. 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 3 I 

Tliink of makiiii;' your wife a be^'gar! Think of her 
liaving- to ask you every day for a dolhir, or for two dollars, 
or for HI ly cents! " What did you do with that dollar! 
gave you last week^' 




Think of having a wife that was afraid of you! What 
kind of children do you expect to have with a beggar and 
a coward for their mother? Oh ! I tell you if you have 
but a dollar in the world and you have got to spend it, 
spend it like a king ; spend it as though it were a dry leaf 
and you the owner of unbounded forests ! That's the way 
to spend it! 

I had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a 
king, than be a king and spend my money like a beggar. 
If it's got to go, let it go. Get the best you can for your 
family — try to look as well as you can yourself. 

When you used to go courting, how nice you looked ! 
Ah, your eye was bright, your step was light, and you just 
put on the very beyt look you could. Do you know that it 
is insufferable egotism in you to suppose that a woman is 
going to love you always looking as bad as you can? Think 



32 COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

;»f it! Any woman on i-urtli will be true to you forever 
wlien you do your level best. Some people tell me, ''Your 
doctrine uboiil loving- iind wives and all that is splendid lor 
the rich, but it won't do for the poor." I tell you to-night 
tliere is on the average more love in the homes of the poor 
than in the ]>alaces of the rich ; and the meanest hut with 
love in it is fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a 
den only fit for wild beasts. That's my doctrine ! You 
can't he so poor but that you can help somebody' 

Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world ; 
and love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to 
borrower and lender both. Don't tell me that you have 
got to be rich ! We have all a false standard of gi'catness 
in the United States. We think here that a man to be 
great must be notorious ; he must be extremely wealthy or 
his iwniG must be between the lips of rumor. It is all 
nonsense! 

It is not necessary t(^ be rich to be great, or to be power- 
ful to be happy; and the happy man is the successful man. 
Happiness is the legal-tender of the soul. Joy is wealth. 



/ 



Illinois. 



Let me tell you something about Illinois. We have 
fifty-six thousand square miles of land — nearly thirty-six 
million acres. Upon these plains we can raise enough to 
feed and clothe twenty million people. Beneath these 
prairies were hidden, millions of ages ago, by that old 
miser, the sun, thirty-six thousand square miles of coal. 
The aggregate thickness of these veins is at least fifteen 
feet. Think of a column of coal one mile square and one 
hundred miles high ! All this came fri)m the sun. What 
a sunbeam such a column would be ! Think of all this 
force, willed and left to us by the dead morning of the 



\Vl>l)()M, AXh 1.1,0(,)UKX('K. 33 

world! Think of the fireside <>f tlie future around wliich 
will sit the fathers, mothers and children of the years to 
he ! Think of the sweet and hap])y faces, the lovin^^ and 
tender eyes that will glow and gleam in the saered light of 
all these flames ! 




IngersoUisms. 
— Nothing is ever made by rascality. 

— It is necessary to the hapoiness of man that he be faith- 
ful to himself. 

— It will take tliousands of years before the world will be- 
lievingly say '' Ilight makes might." 

— It takes a great deal of trouble to raise a good Republi- 
can. 

— A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field. There 
is no business under the sun that can j)ay ten per cent. 

— Every good man who has ever lived in the country, no 
matter whether he has been persecuted or not, has ma<le 
the world better. 

— I know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of all 
wealth, prosperity and luxury. I know that in the country 
wdiere the tillers of the fields are free, everybody is free and 
ought to be prof.'perous. 



34 COL. IXGERSOl.LS WIT. 

— Free speech is the brain of the Republic ; an honest 
ballot is the breath of its lite, and honest money is the 
blood that courses through its veins. 

— It is a splendid fact in nature that you cannot put chains 
upon the limbs of others without putting corresponding 
manacles upon your osvn brain. 

— I propose to stand by the Nation. I want the furnaces 
kept hot. I want the sky to be tilled with the smoke of 
American industry, and upon that cloud of smoke will rest 
forever the bow of perpetual promise. 

— The ballot box is the throne o\^ America ; the ballot box 
is the ark of the covenant. Unless we see to it that every 
man who has a right to vote votes, and unless we see to it 
that every honest vote is counted, the days of the Republic 
are numbered. 

— Why is it that Xew England, a rock-clad land, blossoms 
like a rose ^ Why is it that New York is the Empire Sta^e 
of the great Union? I will tell you. Because you havc- 
been permitted to trade in ideas. 

In every government there is something that ought to be 
preserved ; in every government there are many things 
that ought to be destroyed. Every good man, every p i- 
triot, every lover of the human race, wishes to preserve the 
good and destroy the bad. 

— I despis ' the doctrine of State sovereignty. I believe iii 
the rii2:hts of the States, but not in the sovereignty of t je 
States. States are political conveniences. Rising ab 've 
States as the Alps above valleys are the rights of man. 
Rising above the rights oi' the government even in ihis 
Nation are the sublime rights of the people, Governnunrs 
are good only so long as they protect human rights. Hut 
the rights ot' a man never should be sacriticed upon tiib 
altar of the State or upon the altar of the Nation. 



WISDOM, AND KI ()(,H■l:^•c^. 3^^ 

— I am the sole proprietor of mysi'lf. No party, no organ- 
ization, has any deed of trust on what little brains I have, 
and as long as I can get my part of the common air I am 
going to tell my honest thoughts. One man in the right 
will tinally get to be a majority. 

— Years ago I made up my mind that there was no particu- 
lar argument in slander. I made up my mind that for 
parties as well as for individuals, honesty in the long run 
is the best policy. I made up my mind that the people 
were entitled to know a man's honest thoughts. 

— I like a black man who loves this country better than I 
do a white man who hates it. I think more of a black man 
who fought for our flag than for any white man who endea- 
vored to tear it out of heaven ! I like black friends better 
than white enemies. And I think more of a man black 
<Mitsido and white inside than I do of one white outside and 
black inside. 

— The old way (^f ftirming was a frreat mistake. Every- 
thing was done the wrong w'ay. It was all work and waste, 
weariness and want. They used to fence a hundred and 
sixty acres of land with a couple of dogs. Everything was 
K^ft to the blessed crinity of chance, accident and mistake. 

— 1 aui in favor of the idea of the great and splendid truth 
tli.it this is a Nation one and indivisible. I deny that we 
:!re a cotjfederacy bound together with ropes of cloud and 
chains of mist. Thit. is a Nation, and every man in it owes 
his first allegiance to the grand old flag for which more 
blood was shed than for any other flag that waves in the 
sight oi^ heaven. 

— I atn not only in favor of free speech, but I am also in 
favor of an absolutely honest ballot. There is one king in 
this country; there is one emperor ; there is one supreme 
czar; and that is the legally expressed will of the majority 



*36 COT.. TXr.KR:^OU.*S WIT, 

of the people. The uiaii whoca^^tsaii illegal vote, the man 
who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the fountain of 
power, poisons the spring of justice, and is a traitor to the 
only king in this land. 

— I have always said; and I say again, that the more lib" 
erty there is given away, the more you have. There is 
room in this woild for us all; there is room enough for ail 
of our thoughts; out upon the intellectual sea there is room 
for ev^ery sail, and in the intellectual air there is space for 
every wing. A man that exercises a right tliat he will not 
ffive to others is a barbarian. A State that does not allow 
free speech is uncivilized, and is a disgrace to the Ameri- 
can Union. 

— I have been told that during the war we had plenty of 
money. I never saw it. I lived years without seeing a 
dollar. I saw i^'omises for dollars, but not dollars. And 
t" e green'' a'l<, unh ss you have the gold behind it, is r.o 
more a dollar tlian a bill of fiire is a dinner. You cannot 
make a paper dollar without taking a dollar's worth of papci'. 
We must have paper that represents money. I want it 
issued by the government, and I want behind every one of 
these dollars, either a gold or silver dollar, so that every 
greenback under the iiag can lit't up its hand and swear, " I 
know that mv redeemer liveth.'" 




WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 



37 



i- 




Ingersoll's Eloquent Vision. 

The foUowiiiii; remarkably eloquent words are taken 
from Col. Iiigersoll's brilliant address to the veteran sol- 
diers at Indianapolis : 

The past, as it were, rises before me like a dream. Aojain 
we are in the great struggle for National life. We hear 
the sound of preparation — the music of the boisterous 
drums — the silver voices of the heraic bugles. We see 
thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators ; 
we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of 
men ; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose 
dust wc have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them 
no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great 



38 COL. ingersoll's wit, 

army of freedom. We see them , part with those they love. 
Some are walking for the last time in quiet woody places 
with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings 
and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part 
forever. Others are bending over cradles kissing babies 
that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old 
men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and 
press them to their hearts again and again, and say noth- 
ing ; and some are talking with wives, and endeavoring 
with brave words spoken in the old tones to drive away the 
awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing 
in the door with the babe in her arms — standing in the sun- 
light sobbing — at the turn of the road a hand waves — she 
answers by holding high in her loving hands the child. 
He is gone, and forever. 

We see them all as they march proudly away under the 
flaunting flags, keeping time to the wild grand music of 
war — marcliing down the streets of the great cities — through 
the towns and across the prairies — down to the fields of 
glory, to do and to die for the eternal right. 

We go with them one and all. We are by their side on 
all the gory fields, in all the hospitals of pain — on all the 
weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild 
storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in 
ravines running with blood — in the furrows of old fields. 
We are with them between contending hosts, unable to 
move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among 
the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and 
torn with shells in the trenches of forts, and in the whirl- 
wind of the charge, where men become iron with nerves of 
steel. 

We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine 
but human speech can never tell what they endured. 

We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 39 

We see the maiden in the shadow of her sorrow. We see 
the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. 

The past rises before us, and we see four millions of hu- 
man beings governed by the lash — we see them bound 
hand and foot — we hear the strokes of cruel whips — we see 
hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. We see 
babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty unspeak- 
able ! Outrage infinite ! 

Four million bodies in chains — four million souls in fet- 
ters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and 
child, trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all 
this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free. 

'The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek 
of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. There 
heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and 
women and children. The wand of progress touches) 
the auction-block, the slave-pen, and the whipping-post 
and we see homes and firesides, and school-houses and 
books, and where all was want and crime, and cruelty and 
fear, we see the faces of the free. 

These heroes are dead. They died for liberty — they 
died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land 
they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, un- 
der the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, 
the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of 
the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in the 
windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red with other 
wars — they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the 
roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have 
one sentiment for the soldiers living and dead — cheers for 
the living and tears for the dead. 



40 COL. INGERSOLLS WIT, 

The Colonel's Faith in American Labor. 

I believe in Aiuericaii labor, and I tell you why. The 
other day a man toKl me that we had jn-oduced in the 
United States of America one million tons of rails. How 
much are they worth ? Sixty dollars a ton. In other words, 
the million tons are worth $00,000,000. How much is a 
ton of iron worth in the ground ? Twenty-live cents. 
American labor takes 25 cents of iron in the ground and 
adds to it $59.75. One million tons of rails, and the raw 
nuiterial not worth $24,000. We buihi a ship in the United 
States worth $500,000, and the value of the ore in the 
earth, of the trees in the great forest, of all that enters 
into the composition of that ship bringing $500,000 in gold 
is only $'20,000; $-480,(00 by American labor, American 
muscle, coined into gold : American brains made a legal- 
tender the world around. 



The Independent Man. 

It is a thousand times better to be a whole farmer than 
part oi' a mechanic. It is better to till the ground and 
work for yourself than to bo hired by corporations. Every 
man should endeavor to belong to himself. 

About seven hundred years ago, Kheyam, a Persian, 
said : "Wh}' should a man who possesses a piece of bread 
securing life for two days, and who has a cup of water — 
why should such a man serve another T' 

Young men should not be satistied with a salary. Do 
not mortgage the possibilities ot' your future. Have the 
courage to take life as it comes, feast or famine. Think o( 
hunting a gold mine for a dollar a day, and think of tinding 
one for another num. How would you feel then i 

We are lacking- in true couraire, when, t'or fear ot' the 



WISDOM, AND Kl.OQUENCE. 4 1 

future, wo take the crusts and scraps and iiiir^ardly salaries 
of the ])resent. I had a thousand times ratlier luu'e a farm 
and be independent, tlian to be President of tlie Uniteil 
States, without indejKMidence, filled with doubt and trem- 
blinu", feeliuij: of the popular juilse, resorting to art and art- 
titiee, inipiirini!; about the wind of opinion, and succeeding 
at last in losing my self-respect without gaining the respect 
of others. 

Man needs more nuinliness, more real independence. 
We must take care of ourselves. This we can do by labor, 
and in this way we can ])resei"ve our indei)endence. We 
should try and choose that business or })rof(. ssion, the })ur- 
suit of which will give us the most happiness. Happiness 
is wealth. AVe can be ha))i)y without being rich — without 
holding otHce — without being famous. I am not sure that 
we can be happy with wealth, with otHce, or with fame. 



What a Dollar Can Do. 

Ainsworth R. S)H)fFord — says Col. Ingersoll — gives the 
following facts about interest : 

*'One dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per 
cent., w^ith the interest collected annually and added to the 
j)rincipal, will amount to three hundred and fort}^ dollars. 
At eight }>er cent, it amounts to two thousand two hundred 
and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts only to 
nineteen dollars and twenty-tive cents. At ten per cent, it 
is thirteen thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or 
about seven hundred times as much. At twelve per cent. 
it amounts to eighty-four thousand and seventy-five dollars, 
or more than four thousand times as much. At eighteen 
})er cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and for- 
ty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twenty-four per 



42 COL. INGERSOLLS WIT, 

cent, (which we sometimes hear talked of) it reaches the 
enormous sum of two billion five hundred and titty-one mil- 
lion seven hundred and ninety-five thousand four hundred 
and four dolhirs." 

One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per 
cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal 
to our national debt. 

Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the 
hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at 
night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, 
he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt as soon as you 
possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy 
economy long enough. 



The Colonel's Party. 

I wish to belong to that party which is prosperous when 
the country is prosperous. I belong to that party which is 
not poor when the golden billows are running over the seas 
of wheat. I belong to that party that is prosperous when 
there are oceans of corn, and when the cattle are upon the 
thousand hills. I belong to that party which is prosperous 
when the furnaces are atiame ; and when you dig coal and 
iron and silver; when everybody has enough to eat; when 
everybody is happy ; when the children are all going to 
school ; and when joy covers m}'- nation as with a garment. 
That party which is prosperous then, that is my party. 



How the Colonel Cooks Beefsteak. 

There ought to be a law making it a crime, punishable 
by imprisonment, to fry beefsteak. Broil it ; it is just as 
easy, and when broiled it is delicious. Fried beefsteak 
is not fit for a wild beast. You can broil even on a stove. 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 43 

Shut the front damper — open the back one, then take of a 
griddle. There will then be a draft down through this 
opening. Put on your steak, using a wire broiler, and not 
a particle of smoke will touch it, for the reason that the 
smoke goes down. If jou try to broil it with the front 
damper open, the smoke will rise. For broiling, coal, 
even soft coal, makes a better fire than wood. 



/ 



How IngersoU Hopes to End His Days. 



I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a 
promise of joy as that ot the farmer in the early winter. 
He has his cellar filled — he has made every preparation for 
the days of snow and storm — he looks forward to three 
months of ease and rest ; to three months of fireside con- 
tent ; three months with wife and children ; three months 
of long, delightful evenings; three months of home; three 
months of solid comfort. 

When the life of the farmer is such as I have described, 
the cities and towns will not be filled with want — the streets 
will not be crowded with wrecked rogues, broken bankers, 
and bankrupt speculators. The fields will be tilled, and 
country villages, almost hidden by trees, and vines, and 
flowers, filled with industrious and happy people, will nes- 
tle in every vale and gleam like gems on every plain. 

The idea must be done away with that there is something 
intellectually degrading in cultivating the soil. Nothing 
can be nobler than to be useful. Idleness should not be 
respectable. 

If farmers will cultivate well, and without waste ; if they 
will so build that their houses will be warm in winter and 
cool in summer; if they will plant trees and beautify their 
homes; if they will occupy their leisure in reading, in 
thinking, in improving their minds and in devising ways 



44 ^OL. IXGERSOLL S WIT, 

and means to make their business profitable and pleasant ; 
if they will live nearer together and cultivate sociability ; 
if they will come together often ; if they will have reading 
rooms and cultivate music ; if they will have bath-rooms, 
ice-houses and good gardens ; if their waves can have au 
easy time ; if the nights can be taken for sleep and the ev- 
enings for enjoyment, everybody w^ill be in love with th^ 
tieUls. Happiness should be the object of life, and if life 
on the farm can be ma le really happy, the children will 
grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods 
and the old home. Around the farm w-ill cling and cluster 
the happy memories of the delightful years. 

Remember, I pray you, that you are in partnership with 
all labor — that you should join hands with all the sons and 
daughters of toil, and that all who work l)elong to the same 
noble family. 

For my part, I envy the man who has lived on the same 
broad acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields 
where in youth he played, and lives where his father lived 
and died. 

I can imagine no sweeter w^ay to end one's life than in 
the quiet of the country, out of the mad race for money, 
place and power — far from the demands of business — out of 
the dusty highway where fools struggle and strive for the 
hollow praise of other fools. 

Surrounded by these pleasant fields and foithful friends, by 
those I have loved, I hope to end my days. 




WISDOM, AXi) KLO(;)UENCE. ^5 




Little Ones. 

— A good way to iiuike children tell the truth is to tell it 
yoiirselt*. Keep your word with your child tlie same as you 
would with your banker. 

— I intend so to live that when I die my children can come '. 
to my grave and truthfully say: "He wlio sleeps here '^-^H. 
never gave ns one moment of pain." .r 

— If you tell a child y(ni wdll do anything, either do it or 
give the child the reason why. Truth is born of confidence. 
It comes from the lips of love and liberty. 

— We have been saved by that splendid thing called inde- 
pendence, and I want to see more of it, day after day, and 
I want to see children raised so they will have it. TJiat is 
my doctrine. 

— Make your home happy. Be honest with the children ; 
divide fairly with them in everything. Give them a little 
liberty, and you cannot drive them out of the house. They 
will want to stay there. Make home pleasant. 

— Let children have some daylight at home if you want to 
keep them there, and don't commence at the cradle and 



46 COL. ixgersoll's wit, 

yell, '-Don't!" ''Don't!" ''Stop!" That is nearly all 
that is said to a young one from the cradle until he is 
twenty-one years old. 

— Another thing : let the children eat what they want to. 
Let them commence at whichever end of the dinner they 
desire. That is my doctrine. They know what they want 
much better than you do. Nature is a great deal smarter 
than you ever were. 

— Every little while some door is thrown open in some 
orphan asylum, and there we see the bleeding back of a 
child whipped beneath the roof that was raised by love. 
It is infamous, and the man that can't raise a child without 
the whip ought not to have a child. i 

— Don't plant your children in lorg, straight rows, like 
posts. Let them have light and air, and let them grow 
beautiful as palms. When I was a little boy, children went 
to bed when they were not sleepy, and always got up when 
they were. I would like to see that changed, but they sav 
we are too poor, some of us, to do it. Well, all right. It 
is as easy to wake a child with a kiss as with a blow; witii 
kindness as with a curse. 

— I tell you there is something splendid in man that will 
nnt always mind. Why, if we had done as the kings tol 1 
us live hundred years ago, we would all have been slaves. 
l\ we had done as the priests told us, we would all have 
been idiots. If we had done as the doctors told us, we 
would all have been dead. We have been saved by dis- 
obedience. We have been saved by that splendid thiug 
called independence, and I want to see more of it, day after 
day, and I want to see children raised so they will have it. 
That is my doctrine. Give the children a chance. 

— Be perfectly honor bright with your children, and they 
will be your friends when you are old. Don't try to teach 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 47 

them something they can never learn. Don't insist upon 
their pursuing some calling they have no sort of faculty 
for. Don't make that poor girl play ten years on a piano 
when she has no ear for music, and when she has practiced 
until she can play "Bonaparte crossing the Alps," you 
can't tell after she has played it whether Bonaparte ever 
got across or not. Men are oaks, women are vines, chil- 
dren are flowers, and if there is any Heaven in this world, 
it is in the family. It iswhere the wife loves the husband, 
and the husband loves the wife, and where the dimpled 
arms of children are about the necks of both. 

— If there is one of you here that ever expect to whip your 
child again, let me ask you something. Have your photo- 
graph taken at the time and let it show your face red with 
vulgar anger, and the face of the little one with eyes swim- 
mine: in tearo, and the little chin dimpled witii fear, look- 
ing like a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. If 
that little child should die, I cannot think of a sweeter way 
to spend an Autunm afternoon than to take that photograph 
and go to the cemetery, when the maples are clad in tender 
gold, and when little scarlet runners are coming, like poems 
of regret, from the sad heart of the earth; and sit down 
upon that mound, and look upon that photograph, and 
think of the flesh, now dust, that you beat. Just think of 
it. I could not bear to die in the arms of a child that I 
had whipped. I could not bear to feel upon my lips, when 
they were withered beneath the touch of death, the kiss of 
one that I had struck. 

— I said, and I say again, no day can be so sacred but that 
the laugh of a child wili make the holiest day more sacred 
still. Strike with hand of fire, oh, wierd musician, thy 
harp, strung with Apolk»'s golden hair; fiil the vast cathe- 
dral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of 



4^ coi.. i.\(^.f.rs()i,l's wn, 

the oriraii keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes 
(K) touch the skies, with moonlit waves, and charm the 
lovers wandering on the vine-clad hills: but know, jour 
sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's 
hnppy biugh, the hiugh that fills the eyes with light ami 
every heart with joy; oh, rijipling river of lite, thou u!t 
the blessed boundarv-line between the beasts and man, iuid 
every wayward wave of thine doth drown .some fiend of 
care; oh, laughter, divine daughter of joy, make dimples 
enough in the cheeks of the world to catch and hold and 
glorify all the tears of grief 

— I like to hear children at the table telling what big things 
they have seen during the day;- I like to hear their merry 
voices miuiiiiiig with the clatter of knives and forks. 1 had 
rather hear that than any opera that was ever put upon the 
stage. I. hate this idea of authority. 1 hate dignity. I 
never saw a dignified man that was not after all an old 
idiot. Dignity TS a n)ask; a dignified man is afraid that 
y(;u will know he does not know everything. A man of 
sense and argument is always willing to admit what he 
don'*t know — why? — because there is so much that he does 
know; and that is the first step towards learning anything 
— willingness to adinit what you don't know, and when you 
don't understand a thing, ask — no matter how small and 
silly it may look to other people — ask, and after that you 
know. xV man never is in a state of mind that he can 
learn until he gets that di^'uified nonsense out of him, and 
so I say let us treat our children with perfect kindness and 
tenderness. 

— I want to tell you that yon cannctget the robe of hypoc- 
risy on you so thick that the sharp eye of childhood will 
not see through every veil, and if }0u pretend to your chil- 
dren that you are the best man that ever lived — the bravest 






WISDOM, AND i:i,()(JUKNCE. 49 

man that ever lived — they will tind yon ont every time. 
They will not have the same opinion of father when they 
grow up that they nsed to have. They will have to be in 
miiility bad luck if they ever do meaner things than you 
have done. When your child confesses to yon that it has 
committed a fault, take that child in yonr arms, and let it 
feel your heart beat against its heart, and raise your chil 
dren in the sunlight of love, and they will be sunbeanjs to 
you along the pathway of life. Abolish the club and the 
whip from the house, because, if the civilized use a whip, 
the igDorant and the brutal will use a club, and they will 
use it because you use the whip. 

— I was over in Michigan the other day. There was a boy 
ov^er there at Grand Kapids about live or six years old, a 
nice, smart boy, as you will see from the remark he made 
— what you might call a nineteenth century boy. His 
father and mother had promised to take him out riding. 
Tliey had promised to take him out riding for about three 
weeks, and they would slip off and go without him. Well, 
after a while that got kind of played out with the little 
boy, and the day before I was there they played the trick 
on him again. They went out and got the carriage, and 
went away, and as they rode away from the front of the 
house, he happened to be standing there with his nurse, 
and he saw them. The whole thing flashed on him in a 
moment. He took in the situation, and turned to his nurse 
and said, pointing to his father and mother: "There goes 
the two biggest liars in the State of Michigan!" When 
you go home fill the house with joy, so that the light of it 
will stream out the windows and doors, and illuminate even 
the darkness. It is just as easy that way as any in the 
world. 



5o 



COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 




r1 



Ingersoll's Eloquent Speech to the Volunteer Soldiers. 

At the banquet given to the Army of the Tennessee, at 
Chicago, Nov. 13th 18 , Gen. Sherman announced the 
following toast: *'The volunteer soldiers of the Union 
army, whose valor and patriotism saved the world a gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people and for the people." 
Response by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. 

Col. Ingersoll, mounting the table by which he was sit- 
ting, spoke as follows : 

''"When the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the 
class, and the insanity of secession confronted the civiliza- 
tion of our century, the question, ''Will the great republic 
defend itself?" trembled on the lips of every lover of man- 
kind. 

The North, filled with intelligence and wealth — children 
of liberty — marshalled her hosts and asked only for a leader. 
From civil life, a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, 
stepped forth and with lips of victory voiced the nation's 
first and last demand: "Unconditional and immediate 
surrender." From that moment the end was known. 
That utterance was the first real declaration of war, and, in 
accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events, the 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 5 I 

great soldier who made it received the final reward of the 
rebellioij. 

The soldiers of the republic were not seekers after vulgar 
glor3\ They were not animated by the hope of plunder or 
the love of conquest. They fought to preserve the bless- 
ings of liberty and that their children might have peace. 
They were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of 
prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the 
future they slow the monster of their time. They finished 
what the soldiers of the Revolution commenced. They re- 
lighted the torch that fell from their august hands and filled 
the world again with light. They blotted from the statute 
books laws that had been passed by hypocrites at the insti- 
gation of robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the 
Constitution that infamous clause that made men the catch- 
ers of their fellow men. 

They made it possible for judges to be just, for states- 
men to be human, and for politicians to be honest. 

They broke the shackles from the limbs of slaves, from 
the souls of martyrs, and from the Northern brain. They 




kept our country on the map of the world and our flag in 
lieaven. 

They rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress, 
and for these two angels clad in shining garments — Nation- 
ality and Liberty. The soldiers were the saviors of the na- 
tion. They were the liberators of men. In writing the 



52 COL. ingersoll's wit, 

proclamation of independence, Lincoln, the greatest of our 
mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer 
air when reajjers sing amid the gathered sheaves — copied 
with the pen what Grant and liis hrave comrades wrote 
with their swords. 

Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Koman, the sol- 
diers of the republic, with patriotism as taintless as the air, 
battled for the rights of others ; for the nobility of labor; 
f)ught that mothers might own their babes; that arrogant 
idleness should not scar the back of patient toil, and that 
our country should not be a many-headed monster made of 
warring States, but a nation, sovereign, great and free. 

Blood was water, money, leaves, and life was common 
air until one flag floated over a republic without a master 
and without a slave. Then was asked the question: Will 
a free people tax themselves to pay the nation's debt? 

The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their 
glad children, and to the girls they loved — they went back 
to the fields, the shops and mines. They had not been de- 
moralized. They had been ennobled. They were as hon- 
est in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at 
poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. 
They said : ''We saved the nation's life, and what is life 
without honor?" They worked and wrought with all of 
labor's sons, that every pledge the nation gave should be 
redeemed. And their great leader, having put a shining 
hand of friendship — a girdle of clasped and hai)py hands — 
around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise 
made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold. 

There is still another question : "Will all the wounds 
of the war be healed?" I answ^er. Yes. The Southern peo. 
pie must submit, not to the dictation of the North, but to 
the nation's will and to the verdict of mankind. They 
were wrong, and the time will come when they will say 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 5 T, 

that they are victors who have been vanquished by the 
right. Freedom conquered them, and freedom will culti- 
vate their fields, educate their children, weave for tliem the 
robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their land with 
happy homes. 

The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as the 
North. They made us a Nation. Their victory made us 
free and rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure 
as snow upon volcano lips. 

And now let us drink to the volunteers, to those who 
sleep in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in 
the hearts of those they loved and left — of those who only 
hear in happy dreams the footsteps of return. 

Let us _drijik to those who died where lipless famine 
_UiJ0ckQd.at.,53[Mit3ria-all the maimed whose scars give mod- 
esty a tongue, to all who dared and gave to chance tlie 
care and keeping of their lives — to all the living and all the 
dead — to Sherman, to Sheridan and to Grant, the foremost 
soldiers of the world ; and last, to Lincoln, whose loving 
life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of 



Honest Money. 

I am next in favor of honest money. I am in favor of 
gold and silver, and paper with gold and silver behind it. 
1 believe in silver, because it is one of the greatest of 
American products, and I am in favor of anything that will 
add to the value of American products. But I want a silver 
dollar worth a gold dollar, even if you make it or have to 
make it four feet in diameter. No Government can afford 
to be a clipper of coin. A great Kepublic cannot afford to 
stamp a lie upon silver or gold. Honest money, an honest 
people, an honest Nation. When our money is only worth 



54 COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

80 cents on the dollar, we feel 20 per cent, below par. 
When our mone}' is good we feel good. When our money 
is at par, that is where we are. I am a profound believer 
in the doctrine that for nations as well as men, honesty is 
the best, always, everywhere and forever. 




Eloquent Defense of Good Government. 

We all want a good Government. If we do not, we 
should have none. We all want to live in a land ^yhere 
the law is supreme. We desire to live beneath a flag that 
will protect everj' citizen beneath its folds. We desire to be 
citizens of a Government so great and so grand that it will 
command the respect of the civilized world. 

Most of us are convinced that our Government is the best 
Upon this earth. 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 55 

It is the only Government where manhood, and manhood 
alone, is made not simply a condition of citizenship, but 
where manhood, and manhood alone, permits its possessor 
to have liis equal share in the control of the Government. 

It is the only Government where poverty is upon an ex- 
act equality with wealth, so far as controlling the destinies 
of the Republic is concerned. 

It* is the only Nation where the man clothed in a rag 
stands upon an equality with the one wearing purple. 

It is the only country in the world where, politically, the 
hut is upon an equality with the palace. 

For that reason, every poor man should stand by that 
Governmeat, and every poor man who does not is a traitor 
to the best interests of his children ; every poor man who 
does not is willing his children should bear the badge of 
political inferiority; and the only way to make this Govern- 
ment a complete and perfect success is for the poorest man 
to- think as much of his manhood as the millionaire does of 
his wealth. 

A man does not vote in this country simply because he is 
rich ; he does not vote in this country simply because he 
£ias an education ; he does not vote simply because he has 
talent or genius; we say that he votes because he is a man, 
and that he has his manhood to support ; and we admit in 
this country that nothing can be more valuable to any 
human being than his manhood, and for that reason we put 
poverty on an equality with wealth. 

We say in this country manhood is worth more than gold. 
We say in this country that without liberty the Nation is 
not worth preserving. I appeal to every laboring man, and 
I ask him, Is there another country on this globe where 
you can have your equal rights with others? Now, then, 
in every country, no nuitter how good it is, and no matter 
how bad it is — in every country there is something worth 



56 COL. ingersoi.l's wit, 

preserving, and there is something that ought to be de- 
stroyed. Now recollect that every voter is in his own right 
a king ; eveiy voter in this country wears a crown ; every 
voter in this country has in his hands the scepter of authority; 
and every voter, poor and rich, wears the purple of author- 
ity alike. Recollect it ; and the man that will sell his vote 
js the man that abdicates the American throne. 

The man that sells his vote strips himself of the im- 
perial purple, throws away the scepter, and admits that he 
is less than a man. More than that, the man that will sell 
his vote for prejudice or for hatred, the man that will be 
lied out of his vote, that will be slandered out of his vote, 
that will be fooled out of his vote, is not worthy to be an 
American citizen. 

Now let us understand ourselves. Let us endeavor to do 
what is right ; let us say this country is good — we will make 
it better; let us say if our children do not live in a Republic 
it shall not be our fault. 



\/ A Picture. 

The other night I happened to notice a sunset. The sun 
went down, and the west was full of light and fire, and I 
said: ''There is the perfect death of a great man; that 
dying sun leaves a legacy of glory to the very clouds that 
obstruct its path. That sun, like a great man, dying, leaves 
a legacy of glory even to the ones who persecuted him, 
and the world is glorious only because there have been men 
great enough and grand enough to die for the right.'' Will 
any man, can any man afibrd to die for this country I Then 
we can afford to vote for it. If a man can afford to fight 
for it and die for it, I can aflord to speak for it. 

And now I beg of you, every man and woman, no mat- 
ter in what country In^rn, — if you are an Irishman, recol- 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 5^ 

]qH that this country has done more for your race than all 
other countries under heavens; if you are aGennan, recol- 
lect that this country is kinder to you than your own fath- 
erland, — no matter what country you came from, remem- 
ber that this country is an asylum, and vote as in your 
conscience you believe you ought to vote to keep this flag 
in heaven. I beg every American to stand with that ])art 
of the country that believes In law, in freedom of speech, 
in an honest vote, in civilization, in progress, in human 
liberty, and in universal justice. 



Good Dollars and Good Times. 

If I am fortunate enough to leave a dollar when I die, 
I want it to be a good one ; I don't wish to have it turn to 
ashes in the hands of widowhood, or because a Democratic 
broken promise in the pocket of the orphan ; I want it 
money. I saw not long ago a piece of gold bearing the 
stamp of the Koman Empire. That Empire is dust, and 
over it has been thrown the mantle of oblivion, but that 
piece of gold is as good as though Julius Caesar were still 
riding at the head of the Roman Legion. I want money 
that will outlive the Democratic party. They told us — 
and they were honest about it — they said, "when we 
have plenty of money, we are prosperous." And I 
said : "When we are prosperous, then wehave credit, and, 
credit inflates the currency. Whenever a man buys a 
pound of sugar and says, 'Charge it,' he inflates the cur- 
rency; whenever he gives his note, he inflates the curren- 
cy; whenever his word takes the place of nioney, he 
inflates the currency." The consequence is that when we 
are ])rosperous, credit takes the place of moiiey, and we 
have what we call "jtlenty." But you can't increase pros- 
])erity simply by using promises to pay. 



58 COL. INGERSOIX S WIT^ . 

Suppose you should come to a river that was about dry, 
aud there you would see the ferryboat, and the gentleman 
who kept the ferry, high on the sand, and the cracks all 
opening in the sun filled with loose oakum, looking like an 
average Democratic mouth listening to a Constitutional 
argument, and you should say to him : 

*'How is business ?" 

He would say " Dull." 

And then you would say to him, '' Now, what you want 
is more boat." 

He would probably answer, "If I had a little more wa- 
ter I could get along with this one." 

■ ■t'^ 

IngersoU's Apt Words on State Lines. 

In old times, in the year of grace, 1860, if a man wished 
the army of the United States to pursue a fugitive slave, 
then the army could cross a State line. Whenever it has 
been necessary to deprive some human being of a right, 
then we had a right to cross State lines ; but whenever we 
wished to strike the shackles of slavery from a human be- 
ing we had no right to cross a State line. In other words, 
when you want to do a mean thing you can step over the 
line, but if your object is a good one you shall not do it. 

This doctrine of State sovereignty is the meanest doctrine 
that was ever lodged in the American mind. It is political 
poison, and if this country is destroyed that doctrine will 
have done as much toward it as any other one thing. I be- 
lieve the Union one absolutely. The Democrat tells me 
that when I am away from home the Government will pro- 
tect me ; but when I am home, when I am sitting around 
the family fireside of the nation, then the Government can- 
not protect me ; that I must leave if I want protection. 
Now I denounce that doctrine. For instance, we are at 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENXE. Sq 

war with another countr3% and the American nation comes 
to me and says : *'We want jou." 

I say : 'I won't go.'' 

They draft mo, put some names in a wheel, and a man 
turns it and another man pulls out a paper, and my name 
is on it, ^nd he says : "Come." So I go, and I fight for 
the flag. "When the war is over I go back to my State. 
Now let lis adm^ '^^nt the war has been unpopular, and 
that when I got to the State the people of that State wished 
to trample npon my rights, and I cried out to my Govern- 
ment : "Come and defend me ; you made me defend you." 
What ought the Government to do ? 

I only owe that Government allegiance that owes me my 
protection. Protection is the other side of the bargam ; 
that is Avhat it must be. And if a Government ought to 
protect even the man that it drafts, what ought it to do for 
tlie volunteer, the man who holds his wife for a moment in 
a trenudous embrace, and kisses his children, wets their 
cheeks with his tears, shoulders his musket, goes to the 
field, and says : "Here I am to uphold my flag." A na- 
tion that will not protect such a protector is a disgrace to 
mankind, and its liag a dirty rag that contaminates the air 
in which it waves. 

I believe in a Government with a^i arm long enough to 
reach the collar of any rascal beneath its flag. 

I want it with an arm long enough and a sword sharp 
enough to strike down tyranny wherever it may raise its 
snaky head. 

I want a nation that can hear the faintest cries of its 
humblest citizen. 

I want a nation that will protect a freedman standing in 
the sun by his little cabin, just as quick as it would protect 
Vanderbilt in a palace of marble and gold. 

I believe in a Government that can cross a State line on an 



6o COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

errand of mercy. I believe in a Government that can cross 
a State line when it virisbes to do justice. I do not believe 
that the sword turns to air at a State line. I want a Gov- 
ernment that will protect nie. I am here (Kockford, 111.,) 
to-day — do I stand here because the flag of Illinois is above 
me? I want no flag of Illinois, and if I were to see it 1 




iim^jiii'jjiwjjiii^Lr' 



should not know it. I am here to-day under the folds of 
the flag of my country, for which more good, blessed blood 
has been shed than for any other flag that waves in this 
world. I have as much right to speak here as if I had been 
born right here. 

That is the country in which I believe ; that is the nation 
that commands my respect, that protects all. 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 6 1 




IngersoUisms. 

—The thoughts of a man who is not free are not worth 
much — not much. 

—We have a common interest in tiie preservation of a 
common country. 

—I believe in absolute intellectual liberty ; that a man 
has a right to think. 

— I never knew a man who did a decent action that 
wanted it forgotten. 

—It will be thousands of years before the world will be 
willing to say that right makes might. 

— I had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like 



62 COL. ingersoll's wit, 

a king than be a king and spend my money like a beggar. 

— If you want to get at the honest thoughts of a man he 
must be free. If he is not free you will not get his honest 
thought. 

— Whenever a man does what mantles the cheeks of his 
children with shame, he is the man who says, "Let by- 
gones be by-gones." 

— The Constitution of the United States was the first 
decree entered in the high court of a nation forever divorc- 
ing Church and State. 

— Printing gave pinions to thought and made it possible 
for man to bequ^^ath to the future the richness of his brain, 
the wealth of his soul. 

— I believe another thing. If I belong to the superior 
race I will be so superior that I can make my living without 
stealing from the inferior. 

— We used to worship the golden calf, and the worst you 
can say of us now, is, we worship the gold of the calf, and 
even the calves are beginning to see this distinction. 

— Education is the most radical thing in the world. To 
teach the alphabet is to inaugurate a revolution. To build 
a school house is to construct a fort. A library is an arsenal. 

— I say here that I think a hundred times more of the 
good, honest, black, industrious man of the South than I 
do of all the white men together that don't love the 
government. 

— In the long run the nation that is honest, the people 
that are industrious, will pass the people that are dishonest, 
the people that are idle ; no matter what grand ancestry 
they may have had. 

— 1 believe that every round in the ladder of fame, from 
the one that rests on the ground to the last one that leans 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 63 

against the shining summit of human ambition, belongs to 
the foot that gets on it. 

— Every man who has invented anything for the use and 
convenience of man has helped raise his fellow man. 

— You should keep your minds open to reason ; hear 
what a man has to say, and do not let the turtle-shell of 
bigotry grow above your brain. Give everybody a chance 
and an opportunity ; that is all. 

— If some men were as ashamed of appearing cross in 
public as they are of appearing tender at home, this world 
would be infinitely better. I think you can make your 
home a heaven if you want to — you can make up your 
minds to that. 

— I believe if you have got a dollar in the world and you 
have got to spend it, spend it like a man ; spend it like a 
king, like a prince. If you have to spend it, spend it as 
though it was a dried leaf, and you were the owner of un" 
bounded forests. 

— The last Napoleon was not satisfied with being Emperor 
of the French ; he was not satisfied with having a circlet 
of gold about his head ; he wanted some one evidence that 
he had something within his head, so he wrote the life of 
JuHus Cgesar, that he might become a member of the French 
academy. 

— In every age some men carried the torch of progress 
and handed it to some other, and it has been carried through 
all the dark ages of barbarism, and had it not been for such 
men we would have been naked and uncivilized to-night, 
with pictures of wild beasts tattooed on our skins, dancing 
around some dried snake fetish. 



( 



The more a man knows the more liberal he is ; the less 
a man knows the more bigoted he is. The less a man 



64 COL. ingersoll's wit, 

kuovvs the more certain lie is that he knows it, and the more 
a man knows the better satisfied he is that he is entirely 
ignorant. Gieat knowledge is philosophic, and little, nar 
row, contemptible knowledge is bigoted and hateful.^ 

— I have sometimes wished that there were words of pure 
hatred out of which I might construct sentences like snakes, 
out of which I might construct sentences with mouths 
fanged, that had forked tongues, out of which I might con- 
struct sentences that writhed and hissed ; then I could give 
my opinion of the rebels during the great struggle for the 
})i'eservation of this nation. 

— The grave is not a throne, and a corpse is not a king. 
The living have a right to control this world. I think a 
good deal more of to-day than I do of yesterday, and 1 
think more of to-morrow than I do of this day ; because^ 
it is nearly gone — that is the way I feel. The time to be 
happy is now ; the way to be happy is to make somebody 
else happy and the place to be happy is here. 

— It is not necessary to be rich, nor powerful, nor great 
to be a success ; and neither is it necessary to have your 
name between the putrid lips of rumor to be great. We 
have had a false standard of success. In the years when I 
was a little bin- we read in our books that no fellow was a 
success that did not make a fortune or get a big office, and 
he generally was a man that slept about three hours a night. 
They never put down in the books the names of those gen- 
tlemen that succeeded in life that slept all they wanted to; 
and we all thought that we could not sleep to exceed three 
or four hours if we ever expected to be anything in this 
world. We have had a wrong standard. 



WISDOM, AM) l-:l.()(;>UKNCE. 65 

The Celebrated Speech of Col. Ingersoll Nominating 
James G. Blaine for President. 

At Cincinnati, June, 187<s in jioniinating James G. 
r>Iaine for i^resident, Col. Ingersoll spoke as follows: (full 
report.) 

Mr. Chairman, Ladiks and Gentlemen: Massachu- 
setts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin 11. 
Ihistow ; so am I ; but if any man nominated by this con- 
ventit)n cannot carry the State of Massachusetts, I am not 
satistied with the h>yalty of that State. If the nominee of 
this convention cannot carry the grand old commonwealth 
of Massachusetts by seventy-live thousand majority I would 
advise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as a Democratic head- 
quarters. I would advise them to take from Ihinker Hill 
that old monument of glory. 

The Republicans of the United States demand as their 
leader in the great contest of 1ST<), a man of intelligence, a 
man of integrity, a man of well-known and approved politi 
cal opinions. They demand a statesman ; they demand a 
reformer after as well as before the election. They de- 
mand a politician in the highest, broadest and best sense — 
a man of superb moral courage. They demand a man ac- 
quainted with public affairs ; with the wants of the people ; 
with not only the requirements of the hour, but with the 
demands of the future. 

.They demand a man broad enough to comprehend the 
relations of this Government to the other nations of the 
earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, 
duties and prerogatives of each and every dejnirtment of 
this Government. They demand a man who will sacredly 
preserve the financial honor of the United States ; one who 
knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid 
through the prosperity of the peoj)le ; one who knows 
enough to know that ail the financial theories in the world 



66 COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

cannot redeem a single dollar ; one who knows enough to 
know that all the money must be made, not by law but by 
labor ; one who knows enough to know that the people of 
the United States have the industry to make the money, 
and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it. 

Tlie Republicans of the United States demand a man 
who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they 
come, must come together ; that when they come they will 
come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields ; 
hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning 
wheels ; hand in hand past the open furnace doors ; hand 
in hand by the chinmeys filled with eager fire, greeted and 
grasped by the countless sons of toil. 

This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot 
make it by passing resolutions in a political convention. 

The Republicans of the United States want a man who 
knows that this Government should protect every citizen, 
at home and abroad ; who knows that any Government 
that will not defend its defenders and protect its protectors, 
is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a 
man who believes in the eternal separation and divorce- 
ment of church and school. They demand a man whose 
political reputation is as spotless as a star ; but they do not 
demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of 
moral character signed by a Confederate Congress. The 
man who has, in full, heaped and rounded measure, all 
these splendid qualifications is the present grand and gal- 
lant leader of the Republican party — James G. Blaine. 

Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous 
achievements of its first century, asks for a man wortiiy of 
the past and prophetic of her future ; asks for a man who 
has the audacity of genius ; asks for a man v,'ho is the grand- 
est combhuition of heart, conscience and brain beneath her 
flag. Such a man is James G. Blaine. 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 67 

P^or the "Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there 
can be no defeat. 

This is a grand year — a year filled with recollections of 
the Revolution ; tilled with the proud and tender memories 
of the past; with the sacred legends of liberty ; a year in 
which the sons of freedom will drink from tlie fountains of 
enthusiasm ; a year in which the people call for a man who 
has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the 
Held ; a year in which they call for the man who has torn 
from the throat of treason the tongue of slander — for the 
nian who has snatched the ma^k of Democracy from the 
hideous face of rebellion ; for this man who, like an intel- 
lectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and chal- 
lenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to de- 
feat. 

Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. 
Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress 
and threw liis shining lance full and fair against the brazen 
foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligners 
of her honor. For the Republican party to desert this gal- 
lant leader now is as though an army should desert their 
Gener;i1 u])c>}] the field of battle. 

James G. Elai e is now and has been for years the 
bearer of the sacred standard of the Republican part3^ I 
(•ail it sacred because no human being can stand beneath 
iis folds without becoming aiid without remaining free. 

Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great 
Republic, the only Re])ublic that ever existed upon this 
earth ; in the name of all her defenders and of all her sup- 
porters; in the name of all her soldiers living; in the 
name of all her soldiers dead u])on the field of battle, and 
in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of 
famine at Andersonville and Libbj^, whose sufferings he so 
vividly remembers, Illinois — Illinois nominates for the next 



68 cor., ingersoll's wrr, 

President of this coinilry tluit prince of parlianieutarians- 
that leader of leaders — Janies G. Blaine. 




A Country Full of Kings. 

I want the power where somebody can use it. As long 
as a man is responsible to the people there is no fear of des- 
potism. There's no reigning family in this c(.iintry. We 
are all of us Kings. We are the reigning family. And 
when any man talks about despotism, you may be sure he 
wants to steal or be up to devilment. If we have any sense, 
we have got to have localization of brain. If we have any 
power, we must have centralization. We want centraliza- 
tion of the right kind. The man we choosQ for our head 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 69 

wants the army in one hand and the navy in the other, and 
to execute the supreme will of the supreme people. 

But you say you will cross a State line. I hope so. 
When the Democratic party was in power and wanted to 
pursue a hunum slave, there was no State line. When we 
want to save a human being, the State line rises up like a 
Chinese wall. I believe when one party can cross a State 
line to put a chain on, another party can cross it to take a 
chain off. ^' Why," you say, "you want the Federal Gov- 
ernment to interfere with the rights of a State." Yes, I 
do, if necessary. I want the ear of the Government acute 
enough and arm long enough to reach a wronged man in 
any State. A government that will not protect its pro- 
tectors is no government. Its flag is a dirty rag. That is 
not my government. I want a government that will pro. 
tect its citizens at home. The Democratic doctrine is that 
a government can only protect its citizens abroad. If a 
father can't protect his children at home, depend upon it, 
that he can't do much for them when they are abroad. 

Think of it ! Here's a war. They come to me in Illinois 
and draft me. They tell me I must go. I go through the 
war and come home safe. Afterwards that State finds a 
way to trample on me. I say to the Federal Government, 
'^You told me I owed my first allegiance toj^ou, and I had 
to go to war. Now, I say to you. You owe your first alle- 
giance to me, and I want you to protect me ! 

The Federal Government says, " Oh, you must ask your 
State to request it." 

I say, "That's just what they won't do !" Such a con- 
dition of things is perfectly horrible ! 

If so with a man who was drafted, wluit Vv'ill you say of 
a volunteer ? Yet that's the Democratic doctrine of P'ederal 
Government. It won't do! And vou huow it! 



Jo COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

Some Laughable Remarks About Money With a Few 
Illustrations. 

They say that money is a measure of value. 'Tisii't so. 
A bushel doesn't measure values. It measures diamonds 
as well as potatoes. If it measured values, a bushel of 
potatoes would be worth as much as a bushel of diamonds. 
A yard-stick doesn't measure vahies. They used to say, 
*' there's no use in having a gold }ard-stick." That was 
right. You don't buy the yard-stick. If money bore the 
same relation to trade as a yard-stick or half-bushel, you 
would have the same money when you got through trading 
as you had when you begun. A man don't sell half-bush- 
els. He sells corn. All we want is a little sense about 
these things. 

I don't blame the man wno wanted inflation. I don't 
blame him for praying for another period of inflation. 
t' When it comes," said the man who had a lot of shrunk- 
en property on his hands, "blame me, if I don't unload, 
you may shoot me." It's a good deal like the game of 
poker ! I don't suppose any of you know anything about 
that game ! Along towards morning the fellow who is 
ahead always wants another deal. The fellow that is be- 
hind says his wife's sick, and he must go home. You 
ought to hear that fellow descant on domestic virtue ! And 
the other fellow accuses him of being a coward and want- 
ing to jump the game. A man whose dead wood is hung 
up on the shore in a dry time, wants the water to rise once 
more and float it out into the middle of the stream. 

We were in trouble. The thing was discussed. Some 
said there wasn't enough money. That's so ; I know what 
that means myself. They said if w^e had more money we'd 
be more prosperous. The truth is, if we were more pros- 
perous we'd have more money. They said more money 
would facilitate business. 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 7 I 

Suppose a shareholder in a raih'oad that had earned 
$18,0(10 the pust year slionld look over the books and find 
that in that year the railroad had used $12,000 worth of 
grease. Tlie next year, supj)Ose the earnings should fall 
off $5,000, and the man, in looking over the accounts, 
should learn that in that year the road had used only $500 
worth of grease !' Supposing the man should say: "The 
trouble is, we want more grease." What would you think 
of a man if he discharged the superintendent for m^t using 
more grease ? 

I said, years ago, that resumption would come only by 
prosperity, and the only way to pay debts was by labor. 
I knew that every man who raised a bushel of corn helped 
resumption. It was a question of crops, a question of in- 
dustry. 



An Amusing Story. 

ou Greenbackers are like the old woman in the Tewks- 
bury, Mass., Poor-House. She used to be well off, and 
didn't like her quarters. You Greenbackers have left your 
father's house of many mansions and have fed on shucks 
about long enough. The Supervisor came into the Poor- 
House one day and asked the old lady how she liked it. 
She said she didn't like the company, and asked him what 
he would advise her to do under similar circumstances. 

" Oh, you'd better stay. You're prejudiced," said he. 

*' Do you think anybody is ever prejudiced in their sleep?" 
asked the old lady. '' I had a dream the other night. I 
dreamed I died and went to Heaven. Lots of nice people 
were there. A nice man came to me and asked me where 
I was from. Says I, 'From Tewksbury, Mass.' 

He looked in his book and said, ''You can't stay here." 



72 COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

*'I asked what ^lie would advise me to do under similar 
circumstances. 

'''Well,' he said, 'there's Hell down there, you might 
try that.' 

^'Well, I went down there, and the man told me my 
name wasn't on the book and I coukln't stay there. 'Well,' 
said I, " What would you advise me to do under similar 
circumstances ? ' 

" Said he, ' You'll have to go back to Tewksbury.' " 

And when Greenbackers remember what they once were, 
you must feel now, when you were forced to join the Demo- 
cratic party, as bad as the old lady who had to go back to 
Tewksbury. 



Money and Yardsticks. 

A thousand theories were born of want ; a thousand the- 
ories were born of the fertile brain of trouble ; and these 
people said after all : " What is money? why it is nothing 
but a measure of value, just the same as a half-bushel or 
yardstick." True. And consequently it makes no differ- 
ence whether your half-bushel is of wood, or gold, or sil- 
ver, or paper; and it makes no difference whether your 
yardstick is gold or paper. But the trouble about that 
statement is this : A half-bushel is not a measure of value ; 
it is a measure of quantity, and it measures rubies, dia- 
monds and pearls, precisely the same as corn and wheat. 
The yardstick is not a measure of value ; it is a measure of 
length, and it measures lace, worth $100 a yard, precisely 
as it does cent tape. And another reason why it makes no 
difference to the purchaser whether tlie half-bushel is gold 
or silver, or whether the yardstick is gold or paper, you 
don't buy the yardstick ; you don't get the half-bushel in 
the trade. And if it was so with money — if the people 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 73 

that had the moDej at the start of the trade, kept it after 
the consummation of the bargain — then it wouldn't make 
any difference what you made jour money of. But the 
trouhle is, the money changes hands. And let me say right 
here, money is a thing — it is a product of iuiture--and you 
can no more make a "fiat" dollar than you can make a fiat 
star. 



Bright Money. 

Now listen : No civilized nation, no barbarous nation, 
no tribe, however ignorant, ever used anything as money 
that man could make. They had always used for money 
a production of nature. Some may say, "Have not some 
uncivilized tribes used beads for money, something that 
civilized people could make?" Yes, but a savage tribe 
could not make the beads. The savage tribes supposed 
them to be a product either of nature or of something else 
that they could not imitate. 

Nothing has ever been considered money among any 
people on this globe that those people could make. What 
is a greenback ? The greenbacks are a promise, not money. 
The greenbacks are the nation's note, not money. You 
cannot make a fiat dollar any more than you can make a 
fiat store. You can make a promise, and that promise 
may be made by such a splendid man that it will pass 
among all who know him as a dollar ; but it is not a dollar. 
You might as well tell me that a bill of fare is a dinner. 
The greenback is only good now because you can get gold 
for it. If you could not get gold for it it would not be 
worth any more than a ticket for dinner after the fellow 
who issued tiie ticket had quit keeping the hotel. A dollar 
must be made of something that nature has produced. 

When I die, if I have a dollar left I want it to be a good 



74 COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

one. 1 do not want a dollar that will turn into ashes in the 
hand of widowhood or in the possession of an orphan. Take 
a coin of the Roman empire — a little piece of gold — and it; 
is just as good to-daj as though Julius Ceesar still stood atj 
the head of the Roman legions. I do not wish to trust the^ 
wealth of this nation with the demagogs of the nation. I 
do not wish to trust the wealth of the country to every 
blast of public opinion. I want money as solid as the earth 
on which we tread, as bright as the stars that shine above us. 



A Panic Picture. 

No man can imagine, all the languages of the world can- 
not express what the people of the United States suffered 
from 1873 to 1879. Men who considered themselves mil- 
lionaires found that they were beggars ; men living in pal- 
aces, supposing they had enough to give sunshine to the 
winter of their age, supjposing they had enough to have all 
they loved in affluence and comfort, suddenly found that 
they were mendicants with bonds, stocks, mortgages, all 
turned to ashes in their aged, trembling hands. The chim- 
neys grew cold, the fires in furnaces went out, the poor 
families were turned adrift, and the highways of the United 
States were crowded with tramps. Into the home of the 
poor crept the serpent of temptation, and whispered in the 
tar of poverty the terrible word "repudiation." 

I want to tell you that you cannot conceive of what the 
American people suffered as they staggered over the desert 
of bankruptcy from 1873 to 1879. We are too near now to 
know how grand we were. The poor mechanics said 
"No;" the ruined manufacturer said "No ;" the once mil- 
lionaire said "No, we will settle fair ; we will agree to pay 
whether we ever pay or not, and we will never soil the 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 7 5 

American name with the infamous word, ^repudiation.' " 
Are you not glad ? What is the talk? Are you not glad 
that our flag is covered all over with financial honors ? The 
stars shine and gleam now because they represent an hon- 
est nation. 



Repudiation. 

I think there is the greatest heroism in living for a thing ! 
There's no glory in digging potatoes. You don't wear a 
uniform when you're picking up stones. You can't have a 
band of music when you dig potatoes ! In 1873 came the 
great crash. We staggered over the desert of bankruptcy. 
No one can estimate the anguish of that time. Millionaires 
found themselves paupers. Palaces were exchanged for 
hovels. The aged man, who had spent his life in hard 
labor, and who thought he had accumulated enough to sup- 
port himself in his old age, and leave a little something to 
his children and grandchildren, found they were all beggars. 
The highways were filled with tramps. 

Then it was that the serpent of temptation whispered in 
the ear of want that dreadful word '^Repudiation." An 
effort was made to repudiate. They appealed to want, to 
misery, to threatened financial ruin, to the bare hearth- 
stones, to the army of beggars. We had grandeur enough 
to say: ''No; we'll settle fair if we don't pay a cent!" 
And we'll pay it. 'Twas grandeur ! Is there a Democrat 
now who wishes we had taken the advice of Bayard to 
scale the bonds? Is there an American, a Democrat here, 
who is not glad we escaped the stench and shame of repu- 
diation, and did not take Democratic advice? Is there a 
Greenbacker here who is not glad we didn't do it? He 
may say he is, but he isn't. We then had to pay 7 per 
cent, interest on our bonds. Now we only pay 4. Our 



76 COL. ingersoll's wit. 

greenbacks were then at 10 per cent, discount. Now they 
are at par. How would an American feel to be in Ger- 
many or France and hear it said that the United States re- 
pudiated ? We have found out that money is something 
that can't be made. We have found out that money is a 
product of Nature. When a nation gets hard up, it is 
right and proper for it to give its notes, and it should pay 
them. We have found out that it is better to trust for 
payment to the miserly cleft of the rocks than to any Con- 
gress blown about by the wind of demagogs. We want 
our money good in any civilized nation. Yes, we want it 
good in Central Africa ! And when a naked Hottentot 
sees a United States greenback blown about by the wind, 
he will pick it up as eagerly as if it was a lump of gold. 
They say even now that money is a device to facilitate ex. 
changes. 'Tisn't so ! Gold is not a device. Silver is not 
a device. You might as well attempt to make fiat suns, 
moons, and stars as a fiat dollar. 



niK*i---^; '^isfS'-S'Sir'^" Mi|?*5-^ 




Protection. 

There is another thing in which I believe. I believe in 
the protection of American labor. The hand that holds 
Aladdin's lanjp must be the hand of toil. This nation 
rests upon the shoulders of its workers, and I want the 
American .aboring man to have enough to wear. I want 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. ^'J 

liim to liave enough to .eat. I want him to have something 
for the ordinary misfortunes of life. I want him to luive 
tlie pleasure of seeing his wife well dressed. I want him 
to see a few blue ribbons fluttering about his children. I 
want him to see the flags of health fljing in their beautiful 
cheeks. I want him to feel that this is his country, and 
the shield of protection is above his labor. 

And I will tell you why I am for protection, too. If we 
were all farmers we would be stupid. If we were all shoe 
makers we would be stupid. If we all followed one busi' 
ness, no matter what it was, we would become stupid. 
Protection to American labor diversities American indus- 
try, and to have it diversified touches and developes every 
part of the human brain. Protection protects integrity ; it 
protects intelligence ; and protection raises sense; and by 
protection we have greater men and better-looking women 
and healthier children. Free trade means that our laborer 
is upon an equulity v/ith the poorest paid labor of this 
world. 



The Tariff. 



Where did this doctrine of a tariff for revenue only come 
from ? Fron] the South. The South would like to stab 
the prosperity of the North. Tiiey had rather trade with 
Old England than with JSTew England. They had rather 
trade with the people who were willing to help them in war 
than those who conquered the rebellion. Tliey knew what 
gave us our strength in war. They knew that all the 
brooks and creeks and rivers in New England were putting- 
down the rebellion. They knew that every wheel that 
turned, every spindle that revolved, was a soldier in the 
army of human progress. It won't do. They were so 
hired by the greed of office that they were willing to trade 



78 COL. ingersoll's wit, 

upon the misfortunes of a nation. It won't -do. I don't 
wish to belong to a party tliat succeeds only wljen my coun- 
try falls. I don't wish to belong to a party whose banner 
went up with the banner of rebellion. I don't wish to be- 
long to a party that was in partnership with defeat and dis- 
aster. I don't. And there isn't a Democrat here ])ut what 
kiKtws that a tailure of the crops this year would have 
hel])ed his paity. You know that an early frost would 
have been a godsend to them. You know that the potato- 
bug could have done them more good than all their speak- 
ers. 



I 



Ingersoll's History of State Sovereignty. 

This doctrine of State sovereignty has to be done away 
with; we have got to stanjp it out. Let me tell you its 
history: Tiie first tinie it ever appeared was when they 
wished to keep the slave trade alive until 1808, The lirst 
resort to this doctrine was for the protection of piracy and 
murder, and the next time they appealed to it was to keep 
the inter-state slave trade alive, so that a man in Virginia 
could sell the very woman that nursed hi nj, to the rice iields of 
the South. It was done so they cor.ld raise mankind as a 
crop. It v/as a crop that they could tin-esh the year around. 

The next time they appealed to the doctrine was in favor 
of the Fugitive Slave law, so that every wliite man in the 
North was to become a hound to bay upon the track of the 
fiigitive slave. Under that law the North agreed to catch 
women and give them back to the bloodhounds of the 
South. Under that infamy men and women were held imd 
were kidnapped under the shadow of the dome of the Na- 
tional Capitol. If the Democratic party Isad remained in 
power it would be so now. The South said : ''Befriends 
with us, all we want is to steal labor; be friends with us, 



WISDOM, AND eloquence:. 79 

all we want of yon is to have you catch our slaves ; be 
friends with us, all we want of you is to be in j)artners]iip 
in the business of slavery, and we are to take all the money 
and you are to have the disgrace and dishonor for your 
share." The dividend didn't suit me. 

Tlie next time they appealed to the doctrine of State 
rights was that they iniglit extend the area of human 
shivery ; it was that they might desecrate the fair fields of 
Kansas. 

The next time tht^ appealed to this infamous doctrine 
was in secession and treason ; so now, when I iiear any 
man advocatethis doctrine, 1 know that he is not a friend 
of my country, he is nv)t a friend of humanity, of liberty, 
or of progress. 

Uo"^ 

A Dark Picture. 

This v/orld has not been fit to live in fifty years. There 
is no liberty in it — very little. Why, it is only a few years 
ago that all the Christian nations were engaged in the .'-lave 
trade. It was not until 1808 that England abolished 
the slave trade, and up to that time her priests in her 
churches, and her judges on her benches, owned stock 
in slave ships, and luxuriated on the profits of piracy 
and murder; and when a man stood up and denounced it, 
they mobbed him as though he had been a common burglar 
or a horse thief. Think of it ! It was not until the 28th 
day of August, 1833, that England abolished slavery in her 
coloTiies ; and it was not until the first day of January, 1862, 
that Abraham Lincoln by direction of the entire North, 
wiped that infamy out of this country ; and I never speak 
of Abraham Lincoln but I want to say that he was, in uzy 
judgment, in n)any respects the grandest man ever President 
of the United States. I say that upon his tomb there ought 



8o COL. inc;krsoli/s wit, 

to be tliis line — and I know of no other man deserving it 
so well as he: ''Here lies one who having been clothed 
with almost absolute power never abused it except on the 
side of mercy." 



What the Colonel Has Seen and What he Wants 
to See. 

I have been in countries where the laboring man had 
meat once a year ; sometimes twice — Christmas and Easter. 
And I have seen women carrying upon their heads a bur- 
den that no man would like to carry, and at the same time 
knitting busily with both hands. And those women lived 
without meat } and when I thought of the American laoorer 
I said to myself, ''After all, my country is the bt^st in t}}e 
world." And when 1 came back to the sea and saw the 
old flag flying in the aii', it seemed to me as though the air 
from pui'e joy had burst into blossom. 

Labor has njore to eat and more to wear in the United 
States than in any other land of this earth. I want Amer- 
ica to produce everything that Americans need. I want it 
so if the whole world should declare war against us, so if 
we were surrounded by walls of cannons and bayonets and 
swords, we could supply all our human wants in and of 
ourselves. I want to live to see the American woman 
dressed in American silk ; the American man in everything 
from hat to boots produced in America by the cunning 
hand of the American toiler. 

I want to see a workingman have a good house, painted 
white, grass in the front yard, carpets on the floor and pic- 
tures on the wall. I want to see him a man feeling that 
he Is a king by the divine right of living in the Kepubhc. 
And every man here is just a little bit a king, you know. 
Every man here is a part of the sovereign powei". Every 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 8 I 

iiian wears a little of purple ; ev^ery man has a little of 
crown and a little of sceptre ; and every man that will sell 
his vote for money or be ruled by prejudice is unlit to be 
an American citizen. 




The Struggle for Liberty. "^t 

Seven long years of war — lighting for what? For the 
principle that all men are created equal — a truth that 
nobody ever disputed except a scoundrel ; nobody in the 
entire history of this world. No man ever denied that 
truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never, 
never, and never will. What else were they fighting for? 
Simply that in America every man should have a right to 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nobody ever 
denied that except a villain ; never, never. It has been 
denied by kings — they were thieves. It has been denied 
by statesmen — they were liars. It has been denied by 



82 

priests, by clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops and by 
popes — they were hypocrites. 

What else were they iightiiig for? For the idea that all 
political power is vested in the great body of the people. 
They make all the money ; do all the work. They plow 
the land ; cut down the forests ; they produce everything 
that is ])r()duced. Then who shall say what shall be done 
with what is produced, except Hie producer? Is it the 
non-producing thief, sitting on a throne, surroundtid by 
vermin ? 

The history of civilization is the history of the slow and 
painful enfranchisement of the human race. In the (il len 
times tlie family was a monarchy, the father being the 
monarch. Tlie mother and children were the veriest 
slaves. The will of the father was the supreme law. He 
had the power of life and death. It took thousands of 
years to civilize this father, thousands of years to make the 
condition of wife and mother and children even tolerable. 
A few^ families constituted a tribe; the tribe had a chief; 
the chi(jf was a tyraat ; a few tribes formed a nation ; the 
nation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. A 
strong nation robbed, plundered and took captive the 
weaker ones. 



[/- 1 ^V America's Coming Greatness. 

Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first cen- 
tury, on the guklL-n threshold of the second, I ask. Will 
the second century be as grand as the first ? I believe it 
will, because we are growing more and more humane ; I 
believe there is more human kindness, and a greater desire 
to help one another, than in all the world besides. 

We must progress. We are just at the commencement 
of invention. The steam engine — the telegraph — these are 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. S;^ 

but the toys with wlncli aclenco htis been amused. There 
will b(j gninder things ; there will be wider and higher cul- 
ture — a grander standard o\' character, of literature and art. 

We have now half as many millions of people as we have 
years. We are getting more real solid sense. We are 
writing and reading more books; we are struggling more 
iiud mure to get at the philosophy of life, of things — trying 
more and more to answer the questions of the eternal 
ISphinx. We are looking in every direction — investigating ; 
in short, we are thinking and working. 

The world has changed. I have had the supreme pleas- 
ure of seeing a man — once a slave— sitting in the seat of 
his former master in the Congress of the United States. I 
have had that pleasure, and when I saw it my eyes were 
tilled with tears, I felt that we had carried out the Declara- 
tion of Independence, that we had given reality to it, and 
breathed the breath of life into its every word. I felt that 
our flag would float over and protect the colored man and 
his little children — standing straight in the sun, just the 
same as though he were white and worth a million. 

All who stand beneath our banner are free. Ours is the 
only flag that has in reality written upon it : Liberty, 
Fraternity, Equality — tiie three grandest words in all the 
languages of men. Liberty : Give to every man the fruit 
of his own labor — the labor of his hand and of his brain. 
Fraternity : J] very man in the right is ray brother. Equal- 
ity : The rights of all are equal. No race, no color, no 
|)revious condition, can change the rights of men. The 
Uechiration of Lidependence has at last been carried out 
in letter and in spirit. The second century will be grander 
than the flrst. To-day the black man looks upon his child 
and says : The avenues of distinction are open to you — upon 
your brow may fall the civic wreath. We are celebrating 
the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad shout 



84 COL. ingersoll's wit, 

of a free people, the aiitliein of a grand nation, commencing 
at the Atlantic, is following the sun to the Pacific, across a 
continent of happj homes. We are a great people. Three 
millions have increased to fifty — thirteen states to thirty- 
eight. We have better homes, and more of the conveni- 
ences of life than any other people upon the face of the 
globe. The farmers of our country live better than did 
the kings and princes two hundred years ago — and they 
have twice as much sense and heart. Liberty and labor 
have given us all. Remember that all men have equal 
rights. Remember that the man who acts best his part — 
who loves his friends the best — is most willing to help 
others— truest to the obligation — who has the best heart — 
the most feeling— the deepest sympathies — and who freely 
gives to others the rights that he claims for himself, is the 
best num. We have disfranchised the aristocrats of the^ 
air and have giyen ope co.juatry4o mankind. 




WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 85 




/ Ingersollisms. 

—Mnsicians playing to a deaf audience will not do their 
best. 

— Man must give liberty to others if he would be free 
himself. 

—A lie will not fit a fact; it will only fit another lie for 
the purpose. 

— For ai^es reason was the cry of a drowning man lost in 
the roaring sea. 

— Every fact pushes a suj>erstition from the brain and a 
ghost from the clouds. 

— Fear paints pictures of the ghosts and hangs them in 
the gallery of ignorance. 

— The man vrho does not do his own thinking is a slaye, 
and does not do his duty to hisfellovvMiien. 

— Every form of slavery is a viper that will sooner or 
later stiike its poisonous fangs into the bosoms of men. 

— Out on the intellectual sea there is room for every sail ; 
in the intellectual air there is space enough for every wing. 

— Without liberty there can be no worship. The slave 
may bow, and cringe, and crawl, but he cannot live, he 
cannot adore. 



86 > COL. INGERSOLL S WIT, 

— Great minds seem to be a part of the infinite. Those 
possessing them seem to be brothers of the mountains and 
the seas. 

— And this is my advice to the poor. You can never be 
so poor that whatever you do you can't do in a grand and 
manly way. 

— Frederick Douglass told me that he had lectured upon 
the subject of freedom twenty years before he was permit- 
ted to set his toot in a church. 

— The time is coming when a man will be rated at his 
real worth, and that by his brain and heart. We care 
nothing now about an officer unless he fills his place. 

— The time will come when no matter how much money 
a man has he will not be respected unless he is using it for 
the benefit of his fellow-men. It will soon be here. 

— I pity the man, I execrate the man, who has only to 
brag that he is white. Whenever I am reduced to that 
necessity, I believe shame will make me red instead of 
white 

— Great men do not live alone ; they are surrounded by 
the great; they are the instruments used to accomplisli the 
tendencies of their generation ; they fulfil the prophecies of 
their age. 

— I believe all the intellectual domain of the future is 
open to every man. Every man who finds a fact first, that 
is to be his fact. Every man who thinks a thought, first, 
that is to be his thought. 

— I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what 
thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. I know 
not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to 
come. I cannot dream of the victories to be won upon the 
field of thought ; but I do know that, coming down the in- 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 87 

finite sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank 
and shoal of time" a richer gift, a rarer blessing than lib- 
erty for man, woman and child. 

— I believe in liberty, and I say, "Oh, liberty, float not 
forever in the far horizon — remain not forever in the dream 
of the enthusiast, the philanthropist an.l poet, but come 
and make thy home among the children of men." 

— All the mechanical ingenuity of this earth cannot 
make two clocks run alike ; and how are you going to 
make millions of people of different quantities and qualities 
and amount of brain, clad in this living robe of passionate 
flesh, how are you going to make millions of them think 
alike ? 

— From Copernicus we learned that this earth is only a 
grain of sand on the infinite shore of the universe; that 
everywhere we are surrounded by shining worlds vastly 
greater than our own, all moving and existing in accord- 
ance w^ith law. True, the earth began to grow small, but 
man began to grow great. 

— The last Na])oleon was not satisfied with being the 
emperor of the French. He was not satisfied with having 
a circlet of gold about his head. He wanted some evidence 
that he had something of value within his liead. So he 
wrote the life of Julius Csesar that he might become a 
member of the French Academy. 

— Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many re- 
spects, the grandest man ever President of the United 
States. Upon his monument these words should be writ- 
ten : "Here sleeps the only man in the history of the 
world who, having been clothed with almost absolute 
power, never abused it except upon the side of mercy." 

— A government founded upon anything except liberty 
and justice cannot and ought not to stand. All the wrecks 



88 COL. ingersoll's wit, 

on either side of the stream of time, all the wrecks of the 
great cities, and all the nations that have passed away — all 
are a warning that no nation founded upon injustice can 
stand. From the sand-enshrouded Egypt, from the mar- 
ble wilderness of Athens, and from every fallen, crumbling 
stone of the once mighty Rome, comes a wail, as it were, 
the cry that no nation founded upon injustice can perma- 
nently stand, 

— I have some excuses to oifer for the race to which I 
belong. My first excuse is that this is not a very good 
world to raise folks in anyway. It is not very well adapted 
Ns- to raising magnificent people. There's only a quarter of it 
>^. land to start with. It is three times better lilted for rais- 
V f ing fish than folks; and in that one-quarter of land there is 
not a tenth part fit to raise people on. You can't raise 
people without a good climate. You have got to have tlie 
right kind ot climate, and you have gut to liave certain ele- 
ments in the soil or you can't raise ^ood people. Do you 
know that there is only a little zig zag strip ai'ound the 
world within v/hich have been pnuiuced all men of genius ? 

— In my judgment the black people have suffered 
enough. They have been slaves for two hundred years. 
They have been owned two hundred years, and, more than 
all, they have been compelled to keep the company of these 
who owned them. Think of being compelled to keep tiie 
society of a man who is stealing from you. Think of being 
compelled to live with a man that stole your child fron\ the 
cradle before your very eyes. Think of being compelled to 
live with a thief all your life, to spend your days with a 
white loafer, and to be under his control. For two hun- 
dred years they were bought and .suld and branded like 
cattle. For two hundred years every human tie was rent 
and torn asunder by the brutal, bloody hand of avaricc 



WISDOM, AND ELOQUENOE. 89 

and might ; and for that reason I am in favor of this Gov- 
ernment ])rotecf.ing them in every rii^ht they have got in 
every Soutliorii State, if it takes another war to do it. 

— It is ofreu said of this or that man that he is a self- 
made man — tliat he was born of the poorest and humblest 
])aronts and tliat with every obstacle to overcome he be- 
came great. This is a mistake. Poverty is generally an 
advantage. Most of the intellectual giants of the world 
have been nur.-td at the sad hut loving breast of poverty. 
Most cf tliobe wlio have climbed highest on the shining lad- 
der of fame commenced at the lowest round. They were 
reared in the straw thatclied cott{?ges of Europe; in the log 
houses of Ameriea ; in tlie factories of the great cities ; in 
ihe midst of toil ; in the smoke and din of labor, and on 
the verge of want. They were rocked by the feet of motli- 
ers whose hands, at the same time, were busy with the 
needle or the wheel. 

— The superior man is the man who helps his fellow - 
men; tbe superior man is tlie useful man; tlie superior 
nuiM is the kind man, the mnn who lifts up his down-trod- 
den brothors; and the greater load of human sorrow and 
human want you can get in your arms the higher you can 
climb th.e great hill of f^ime. The superior man is the man 
who loves his fellow-mon. Let me say right here, the su- 
])erior men, the grand men, are brothers the world over. 
No matter what their complexion — continents may divide 
them — yet they embrace eacli other. Centuries may sep- 
arate, yet they are hand in hand, and all the good and all 
tli(; graTid and all the superior men, shoulder to shojdder, 
heart to heart, are fighting die great battle for the progress 
of mankind. 

— All the advance that has been made in the science of 
tnedicine has been made by the rccV:lessness of patient". I 



90 C0\.. INCnsRSOTLS WIT, WISDOM, AND ELOQUENCE. 

can rocollect uhon thoy wouldn't give a man water in a 
lever — iu)t a drop. Now and then some fellow would get 
so thirsty he would say : ''Well, TU die anyway, so I'll 
drink it," and thereupon he would drink a gallon of water, 
and thereupon ho would burst into a generous perspiration 
and get well, and the next morning when the doctor would 
come to see him they would tell him about the man drink- 
ing the water, and he would say: ''How much?" 

"Well, ho swallowed two pitchers full." 

''Is ho alive?" "Yes." 

So they would go into the room and the doctor would 
i'v(A his ]>ulso and ask him : 

"Did you drink two pitchers of water?" 

"Yes." 

''My C\o(\ I what a constitution you have got." 

— 1 think we came from the lower animals. I am not 
dead sure (>f it, but think so. When I iirst read about it I 
didiTt liki' it. My heart was lilled with sympathy for those 
peo[)le who leave nothing to be proud of except ancestors. 
I thought lu>\v terrible this will bo upon the nobility of the 
old world. Tliink of their being forced to trace their an- 
cestry ba.ik to the Duke Orang-Outang or tt> the Princess 
(Chimpanzee. After thinking it all over 1 came to the con- 
clusivui that I liked that doctrine. I became convinced in 
spite ot" mvvself I read about rudimentary boms ami mus- 
cles. I was told that everybody had rudimentary muscles 
extending from the ear into the cheek. I asked : "What 
are they ?" 1 was told: "They are the remains of mus- 
cles; they became rudimentary from the lack of use." 
They went into bankruptcy. They are the muscles with 
which your ancestors used to llap their ears. Well, at first 
1 was greatly astvuiished, and afterward I was more asion- 
ished to iind they had become rudimentary. 



F>a.rt II. 

GREAT SPEECHES. 



COL.INGERSOLL'S 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 



I.— TO THE FARMERS ON FARMING. 



INGKKSOLL S EARLY EXPERIENCE WHEN HE WAS A FARMER 

A KETROSPEOTIVE VIEW. 
[From the Illinois State Register \ 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I am not an old and expe- 
rienced farmer, nor a tiller of tiie soil, nor one of the liard- 
luinded sons of hibor. I imagine, however, that J know 
something about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness 
out of the ground. 

I know en<>Ui>h to know that agriculture is the basis of 
all wealth, prosperity and luxury. I kncnv that in th3 
country where the tillers of the lields are free, everybody 
is ix^Q, and oiiglit to be prosperous. 

The old way of farming was a great mistake. Every- 
thing was done the wrong way. It was all work and waste, 
weariness and want. They used to fence a hundred and 
sixty acres ot land with a couple of dogs. Everything was 
left to the piotection of the blessed trinity of chance, acci- 
dent and ujistake. 

When 1 was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hun- 

3 



COL. INGERSOLL S 



1 



dred miles in wagons and sell it for thirty-five cents a 
bushel. They would bring home about three hundred feet 
of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt, and a 
eook-stovo that never would draw and never did bake. 

In those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. 
Cooking was an unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not 
a ]>loa8ure. Tt was hard work for the cook to keep on good 
terms oven with hunger. 

Wo had ytoov houses. The rain held the roofs in perfect 
r-ontempt, and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and 
bods. Thoy had no barns. The horses wore kept in rail 
])ons surrounded with straw. Long before spring the sides 
would bo eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. 
Food is fuel. When the cattle wore exposed to all the 
bhists of winter, it took all the corn and oats that could be 
.siuifcd into tliom to prevent actual starvation. 

In those times farmers thought the best place for the pig- 
pen was immediately in front of the house. There is noth- 
ing Hke sociability. 

Women were supposed to know the art of making tires 
without fuel. The wood-pile consisted, as a general thing, 
of one log, upon which an axe or two had been worn out 
in vain. There was nothing to kindle a tire with. Pickets 
were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken fron) 
the house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kind- 
ling. Everything was done in the hardest way. Every- 
thing about the farm was disagreeable. Nothing was kept 
in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood in 
tho sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the tields. There 
was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. It was 
all labor and weariness and vexation of spirit. The crops 
were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put in 
too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught 
by the irost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or 



IHKEE GREAT SPEECHES. 5 

eatoii by worms, or carried away by birds, or du^ up by 
gojthcrs, or washed away by floods, or dried up by tlio sun, 
or rotted in the stack, or Iveated in the crib, or they all run 
U> vines, or .to})s, or straw, or smut, or cobs. And when 
in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between the 
plow and the reaper, they did succeed in raisin^]; a good 
croj) and a high price was oflfered, then the roads w^ould be 
iiii])assable. And when the roads got good, then the prices 
went down. Everything worked together for evil. 

Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he would 
never cultivate the soil. The moment they arrived at the 
age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms 
and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted to bo 
book-keepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance 
agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the 
(.hudgery of the farm. Nearly every boy acquainted with 
the three ll's — reading, writing and arithmetic — imagined 
that he had altogether more education than ought to be 
wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to 
get into some other business. Those who stayed upon the 
farm envied those who went away. 

A few years ago the times were prosperous, and the young 
men went to the cities to enjoy the fortunes that were 
waiting for them. They wanted to engage in something 
that ])romised quick returns. They built railways, estab- 
lished banks and insurance com])anies. They speculated 
in stocks in Wall street, and ganibled in grain at Chicago. 
They became rich. They lived in palaces. They rode in 
carriages. They pitied their poor brothers on the farms, 
and the poor brothers envied them. 

l>ut time has brought its revenge. The farmers have 
seen the railroad president a bankrupt, and the road in the 
hands of a receiver. They have seen the bank president 
abscond, and the insurance company a wrecked and ruined 



COL. INGERSOLLS 



fraud. The only solvent people, as a class, the only inde 
pendent people, are the tillers of the soil. 



Farming must be made more attractive. The comforts 
of the town must be added to the beauty of the lields. The 
3ocijibiiity of the city must be rendered possible in the 
country. 

P'jirming has been made repulsive. The farmers have 
l)cen unsociable, and their homes have been lonely. They 
liave been wasteful and careless. They iiave not been 
proud of their business. 

No farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to 
sell. lie should sell horses, not oats ; sheep, cattle an({ 
pork, not corn. He should make every profit possible out 
r>f v/hiit he produces. So long as the farmers of the Middle 
States ship their corn and oats, so long they will be poor, — 
just so long will their farms be mortgaged to the insurance 
companies and banks of the east, — -just so long will they do 
the work, and others reap the benefit, — just so loug will 
they be poor, and the money lenders grow rich, — just so 
long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the net profits of 
honest toil. When the farmers of the west ship beef and 
pcjrk instead of grain, — when we manufacture here, — wheu 
we cease paying tribute to others, ours will be the most 
prosperous country in the world. 

Another thing — It is just as cheap to raise a good as a 
poor breed of cattle. Scrubs will eat just as much as 
thoroughbreds. If you are not able to buy Durhams and 
Alderneys, you can raise the corn-breed. By ''corn-breed '' 
I mean the cattle that have for several genenttions had 
enough to eat, and have been treated with kindness. Every 
farmer who will treat his cattle kindly, and feed them ail 
they want, will, in a few years, have blooded stock on his 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 7 

hvin. All blooded stock has been produced in this way. 
Von Ciin raise good cattle just as you can raise good people. 
If you wish to raise a good boy you must give him plenty 
to eat, and treat him with kindne'ss. In this way, and in 
this way only, can good cattle or good ])eople be produced. 

Another thing — You must beautify your homes. 

When I was a farmer it was not fashionable to set out 
trees, nor to plant vines. 

When you visited the farm you were not welcomed by 
llowers, and greeted by trees loaded with fruit. Yellow 
dogs came bounding over the tumbled fence like wild beasts. 
There is no sense — there is no profit in such a life. It is 
not living. The farmers ought to beautify their homes. 
There should be trees and grass, and flowers and running 
vines. Everything should be kept in order; gates should 
be kept on their hinges, and about all there snould be the 
pleasant air of thrift. In every house there should be a 
bath-room. The bath is a civilizer, a reHner, a beautifier. 
When you come from the fields tired, covered with (hist, 
nothing is so refreshing. Above all things, keep clean. It 
is not necessary to be a pig in order to raise one. In the 
cool of the evening, after a day in the Held, put on clean 
clothes, take a seat under the trees, 'mid the perfume of 
flowers, surrounded by your family, and you will know 
what it is to enjoy life like a gentleman. 

WHAT THE COLONEL BELIEVES TO BE THE BEST PORTION OF 
THE EARTH. 

In no part of the globe will farming pay better than in 
the Western States. You are in the best portion of the 
earth. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, there is no such 
country as yours. The east is hard and stony ; the soil is 
stingy. The far west is a desert parched and barren, dreary 
ujui desolate as perdition wou.d be with the fires out. It 



8 COL. INGERSOLLS 

is better to dig wlieat and corn from the soil than gold. 
Only a few days ago I was where they wrench the precious 
metals from the miserly clutch of tlie rocks. When I saw 
tlie mountains, treeless, shrubless, liowerless, without even 
a spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold had the same 
effect upon the country that hokls it, as upon the man who 
lives and labors only lor that. It affects the land as it does 
the man. It leaves the heart barren without a flower of 
kindness — without a blossom of pity. 

The farmer in the Middle States has the best soil— the 
greatest return for the least labor — more leisure— more 
time for enjoyment than any other farmer in the world. 
His hard work ceases v/ith autumn. He has the long win- 
ters in which to become acquainted with his family — w^th 
his neighbors—in which to read and keep abreast with the 
advanced thoaght of his day. He has the time and means 
of self culture. He has more time than the mechanic, the 
merchant or the professional man. If the farmer is not 
well informed it is his own fault. Books are cheap, and 
every farmer can have enough to give him the outline of 
every science, and an idea of all that has been accomplished 
by man. 

THE "FARMER AND THE MKCHANIO— WHICH THE COLONEL THINKS 
HAS THE BEST OF IT. 

In many respects the farmer has the advantage of the 
mechanic. In our time we have plenty of mechanics but 
no tradesmen. In the sub-division of labor we have a 
thousand men working upon different parts of the same 
thing, each taught in one particular branch, and in only 
one. We have, say, in a shoe- factory, hundreds of men, 
but not a shoemaker. It takes them all, assisted by a great 
number of machines, to make a shoe. Each does a par- 
ticular part, and not ou^^ f^f them knows the entire trade. 



THREE GKEAT SPEECHES. 9 

The result is that the iiioaient the factory shuts down these 
men are out of employment. Out of emph)yment means 
out of' bread —out of bread means famine and horror. The 
mechanic of to-day has but little independence. His pros- 
perity often depends upon the good-will of one man. He 
is liable t() be discharged for a look, for a word. He lays 
by but little for his declining years. He is, at the best, the 
slavx' of capital. 

It is a thousand times better to be a whole fartner than 
part of a mechanic. It is better to till the ground and 
work for yourself than to be hired by corporations. Every 
man should endeavor to belong to himself. 

About seven hundred years ago, Kheyam, a Persian, 
said : '' Why should a man who possesses a piece of bread 
securing life for two days, and who has a cup of water — '■ 
why should such a man serve another?'' 

Young men should not be satisfied with a salary. Do 
not mortgage the possibilities of your future. Have the 
courage to take life as it comes, feast or famine. Think of 
hunting a gold mine for a dollar a day, and think of tinding 
<)!:e for another man. How would you feel then ? 

We are lacking in true courage, when, for fear of the 
future, we take the crusts and scraps and niggardly salaries 
I't the present. I had a thousand times rather have a farm 
;ind be independent, than to be President of the United 
States without independence, tilled with doubt and trem- 
bling, feeling of the popular pulse, resorting to art and 
aitilice, inquiring about the wind of opinion, and succeed- 
ing at last in losing my self-respect without gaining the re- 
spect of others. 

Man needs more manliness, more real independence. We 
]\ai^i take care of ourselves. This v/e can do by labor, and 
in this way we can preserve our independence. We should 
try and choose that business or profession the pursuit of 



lO COL. INGERSOLLS 

wliicli will give us the most happiness. Happiness is wealtli. 
We can be happy without being rich — without holding 
office — without being famous. I am not sure that we can 
be happy with wealth, with ofhco, or with fame. 

THE FARMER AND THE PROFESSIONAL MAN — THE RACE 
OF LIFE. 

• There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope 
of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can 
promise. A professional man is doomed some time to feel 
that his powers are waning. He is doomed to see younger 
and stronger men pass him in the race of life. He looks 
forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He will 
be last where once he was the first. But the farmer goes, 
as it were, into partnership with nature — he lives with trees 
and flowers — he breathes the sweet air of the fields. There 
is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. His 
nights are filled with sleep and rest. He watches his flocks 
and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny slopes, 
lie hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, 
and the trees he planted in youth rustle above him as he 
plants others for the children yet to be. 

Our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and 
the great question asking for an answer is : What shall be 
done with these men? What shall these men do? To 
this there is but one answer : They must cultivate the soil. 



Farming must be more attractive. Those who work the 
land nmst have an honest pride in their business. They 
must educate their children to cultivate the soil. They 
nmst make farming easier, so that their children will not 
hate it themselves. The boys must not be taught that 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. I I 

tilling the soil is a curse and almost a disgrace. They 
must not suppose that education is thrown away upon thein 
unl(\'^s tliey hecome ministers, lawj'ers, doctors or states- 
men. It must be understood that education can be used 
to advantage on a farm. We must get rid of the idea that 
a little learning unfits one for work. Tliere are hundreds 
('f graduates of Yale and Harvard and other colleges, who 
are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, 
clerks, copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of 
menial service. Tliey seem willing to do anything that is 
not regarded as work — anything that can be done in a town, 
in the house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they 
would a leprosy. Nearly every young man educated in 
this way is simply ruined. Such an education ought to be 
called ignorance. It is a thousand times better to have 
common-sense without education, than education without 
the sense. Boys and girls should be educated to help 
themselves. They should be taught that it is disgraceful 
to be idle, and dishonorable to be useless. 

I say again, if you want more men and women on the 
farms, something must be done to make farm-life pleasant. 
One great difficulty is that the farm is lonely. People 
write about the pleasures of solitude, but they are found 
t>nly in books. He who lives long alone becomes insane. 
A hermit is a mad man. Without friends and wife and 
child, there is nothing left worth living for. The unsocial 
are the enemies of joy. They are filled with egotism and 
envy, with vanity and hatred. People who live much 
alone become narrow and suspicious. They are apt to be 
the jn'operty of one idea. They begin to think there is no 
use in anything. They look upon the happiness of others 
as a kind of folly. They hate joyous folks, because, way 
down in their hearts, they Qwwy them. 



12 COL. INGERSOLL's 



SHOULD LIVE IN VILLAGES. 

In our country farm-life is too lonely. The farms are 
large, and neighbors are too far apart. In these days, when 
the roads are filled with ''tramps," the wives and children 
need protection. When the farmer leaves home and goes 
to some distant field to work, a shadow uf fear is upon his 
heart all day, and a like shadow rests upon all at home. 

In the early settlement of our country the pioneer was 
forced to take his family, his axe, his dog and his gun, and 
go into the far wild forest, and build his cabin miles and 
miles from any neighbor. He saw the smoke from his 
hearth go up alone in all the wide and lonely sky. 

But this necessity has passed away, and now, instead ot 
living so far apart upon the lonely farms, you should live 
in villages. With the improved machinery which you have 
—with your generous soil — with your markets and means 
of transportation, you can now aftord to live together. 

You should live in villages, so that you can have the 
benefits of social life. You can have a reading-room — you 
can take the best papers and magazines — you can have 
plenty of books, and each one can have the benefit of them 
all- Some of the young men and women can cultivate 
music. You can have social gatherings — you can learn 
from each other — you can discuss all topics of interest, and 
in this way you can make farming a delightful business. 
You must keep up with the age. The way to make farming 
respectable is for farmers to become really intelligent. 
They must live intelligent and happy lives. They must 
not be satisfied with knowing something of the afi'airs of a 
neighborhood and nothing about the rest of the earth. The 
business must be made attractive, and it never can be 



until the farmer has prosperity, intelligence and leisure. 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. I 3 

THE Colonel's amusing remarks about getting up early 
IN thk morning. 

jtt IS t\oc necessary in this age of the world for the farmer 
Co rise in the middle of the night and begin his work. 
This getting up so early in the morning is a relic of bar- 
barism. It has made hundreds of thousands of young men' 
curse the business. There is no need of getting up at 
three or four o^ clock in the winter morning. The farmer 
who persists in dragging his wife and children from their 
beds ought to be visited by a missionary. It is time enough 
to rise after the sun has set the example. For what pur- 
pose do you get up? To feed the cattle? Why not feed 
them more the night before ? It is a waste of life. In the 
old times they used to get up about three o'clock in the 
morning, and go to work long before the sun liad risen with 
'Miealing upon his wings," and as a just punishment they 
all liad the ague ; and they ought to have it now. The 
man who cannot get a living upon Ilhnois soil without 
rising before daylight ought to starve. Eiiijht hours a day 
is enough for any farmer to work except in harvest time. 
When you rise at four and work till dark what is life worth ? 
Of what use are all the improvements in farming? Of 
what use is all the improved machinery unless it tends to 
give the farmer a little more leisure ? What is harvesting 
now, compared with what is was in the old time ? Think 
of tiie days of reaping, of cradling, of raking and binding 
and mowing. Think of threshing with the flail and win- 
nowing with the wind. And now think of the reapers and 
mowers, the binders and threshing machines, the plows and 
cultivators, upon which the farmer rides protected from the 
siin. It, with all these advantages, you cannot get a living 
without rising in the middle of the night, go into some 
other business. You should not rob your families of sleep. 



14 COL. INGERSOLLS 

Sleep is the best medicine in the world. There is no such 
thing as health without plenty of sleep. Sleep until you 
are thoroughl}^ rested and restored. When you work, 
work ; and when you get through take a good, long and 
refreshing sleep. 

THE FASHIONS AND HANDSOME WOMEN. 

Another thing— I am a believer in fashion. It is the 
duty of every woman to make herself as beautiful and 
attractive as she possibly can. 

"Handsome is as handsome does," but she is much 
handsomer if well dressed. Every man should look his 
very best. I am a believer in good clothes. The time 
never ought to come in this country when you can tell a 
farmer's wife or daughter simply by the garments she 
wears. I say to every girl and woman, no matter what the 
material of your dress may be, no matter how cheap and 
coarse it is, cut it and make it in the fashion. I believe in 
jewelry. Some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my 
judgment, wearing jewelry is the lirst evidence the barbarian 
gives of a wish to be civilized. To adorn ourselves seems 
to be a part of our nature, and this desire seems to be every- 
where and in everything. I have sometimes thought that 
the desire for beauty covers the earth with flowers. It is 
this desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the chamber 
of the shell, and gives the bird its plumage and its song. 
Oh ! daughters and wives, if you would be loved, adoro 
yourselves — if you would be adored, be beautiful 1 

HOME vs. THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 

There is another fault common with the farmers of oui 
country—they want too much land. You cannot, at present, 
when taxes are high, afford to own land that you do not 
cultivate. Sell it and let others make farms and homes. 



THREE GREAT EECTURES. 1 5 

In this way what you keep will be enhanced in value. 
Farmers ought to own the land they cultivate, and cultivate 
what the}' own. Renters can hardly be called farmers. 
There can be no such thing in the highest sense as a home 
unless you own it. There must be an incentive to plant 
trees, to beautiiy the grounds, to preserve and improve. 
It elevates a man to own a home. Jt gives a certain inde- 
pendence, a force of character that is obtained in no other 
way. A man without a h'-me i'avl^ like a passenger. There 
is in such a man a little of the vagrant. Hom^s make 
])atriots. He who has sat by his own Preside with wife 
and children, will defend it. When he hears the word 
country pronounced, he thinks of his home. 

Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a mus- 
ket in defense of a boarding house. 

The prosperity and glory of onr country de|)end upon 
the number of our ])eople who are the owners of homes. 
Around the fireside cluster the private and the public vir- 
tues of our race. Raise your sons to be independent 
tlirough labor — to pursue some business for themselves, 
and u})on their own account — to be self-reliant — to act 
upon their own responsibility, and to take the consequences 
like men. Teach them above all things to be good, true 
and faithful husbands — winners of love, and builders ot 
homes. 

INDUSTRY AND EKOTHEKHOOD. 

A great many farmers seem to think that they are the 
only laborers in the world. This is a very foolish thing. 
Farmers cannot get along without the mechanic. You are 
not independent of the man of genius. Your ])]'Osperity 
depends u])on the inventor. The world advances by the 
assistance of all laborers; and all labor is under obligations 
to the inventions of genius. The inventor does as much 
for agriculture as lie who tills the soil. All laboring men 



1 6 COL. ingersoll's 

should be brothers. You are in partnership with the me- 
chanics who make jour reapers, jour mowers and jour 
plows ; and jou should take into jour granges all the men 
who make their living bj honest labor. The laboring 
people should unite and should protect themselves against 
ail idlers. You can divide mankind into two classes: the 
laborers and the idlers, the supporters and the supported, 
the honest and the dishonest. Everj man is dishonest who 
lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occu- 
pies a throne. All laborers sliould be brothers. The 
laborers should have equal rights before the world and 
before the law. And I want everj farmer to consider every 
man who labors either with hand or brain as his brother. 
Until genius and labor formed a partnership there was no 
such thing as prosperitj among men. Everj reaper and 
mower, every agricultural implement, has elevated the 
work of the farmer, and his vocation grows grander with 
every invention. In the olden time the agriculturist was 
ignorant ; he knew nothing of machinery, he was the slave 
of superstition. 

The farmer has been elevated through science, and he 
should not forget the debt he owes to the mechanic, to the 
inventor, to the thinker. He should remember that all 
laborers belong to the same grand familj — that thej are 
the real kings and queens, the only true nobilitj. 

WHAT THE RAILKOADS HAVE DONE — THIKTY-THEEE DOZEN 
EGGS FOR ONE DOLLAR. 

Another idea entertained t)j most farmers is that they 
are in some mjsterious waj oppressed by everj other kind 
of business — that thej are devoured by monopolies, espe- 
cially by railroads. 

Of course, the railroads are indebted to the farmers for 
their prosperity, and the farmers are indebted to the railroads. 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. l^ 

A few years ago you endeavored to regulate the charges 
of raih'O.-id companies. The principal complaint you had 
was tliat they charged too much for the transportation of 
corn and otlicr cereals to the East. You should remember 
til at all freight are paid by the consumers of the grain. 
You are really interested in transportation from the East 
to the AVest and in local freights. The result is that while 
you have put down through freights you have not succeeded 
so well in local freights. The exact opposite should be the 
policy in Illinois. Put down local freights ; put theui down, 
if you can, to the lowest possible figure, and let through 
freights take care of themselves. If all the corn raised in 
Illinois could be transported to New York absolutely free, 
it would enhance but little the price that you would receive. 
What we want is the lowest possible local rate. Instead of 
this you have simply succeeded in helping the East at the 
expense of the West. The railroads are your friends. 
They are your partners. They can prosper only where the 
country through which they run prospers. All intelligent 
railroad men know this. They know that present robbery 
IS future bankruptcy. They know that the interest of the 
farmer and of the railroad is the same. We must have 
railroads. What can we do without them? 

When we had no railroads, we drew, as I said before, our 
grain two hundred miles to market. 

In those days the farmers did not stop at hotels. They 
slept under the wagons — took with them their food — fried 
their own bacon, made their own coffee, and ate their meals 
in the snow and rain. Those were the days when they 
received ten cents a bushels for corn — when they sold four 
bushels of potatoes for a quarter — thirty-three dozen eggs 
for a dollar, and a hundred pounds of pork for a dollar and 
a half. 

What has made the difference \ The railroads came to 



1 8 COL. ingersoll's 

your door and tliej brought with them the markets of the 
world. They brought New York and Liverpool and Lon- 
don into Illinois, and the State has been clothed with pros- 
perity as with a mantle. It is the interest of the x'armer to 
protect every great interest in the State. In these iron 
highvva3's more than three hundred million dollars have 
been invested — a sum equal to ten times the original cost 
of all the laud in the State. To make war upon the rail- 
roads is a short-sighted and suicidal policy. They should 
be treated fairly and should be taxed by the same standard 
that farms are taxed, and in no other way. If we wish to 
prosper we must act together, and we must see to it that 
every form of labor is protected. 

BUSINESS AND THE MONET QUESTION. 

There has been a long period of depression in all busi- 
ness. The farmers have suffered least of all. Your land 
i>f just as rich and productive as ever. Prices have been 
reasonable. The towns and cities have suffered. Stocks 
and bonds have shrunk from par to worthless paper. 
Princes have become paupers, and bankers, merchants and 
millionaires hav o passed into the oblivion of bankruptcy. 
The period of depression is slowly passing away, and we 
are entering upon better times. 

A great many people say that a scarcity of money is our 
only difficulty. In my opinion we have money enough, 
but we lack confidence in each other in the future. 

Tliere has been so much dishonesty, there have been so 
many failures, that the people are afraid to trust anybody. 
There is plenty of money, but there seems to be a scarcity 
of business. If you were to go to the owner of a ferrv, 
and, upon seeing his boat lying high and dry on the shore, 
should say, ^' There is a superabundance of ferry-boat," 
he would probably reply, "No, but there is a scarcity of 



THRi:]-: GKKAT SPEECHES. 19 

water/' b'o witli us there is not a scarcity f money, but 
there is a scarcity of business. And this scarcity springs 
l"j oni hick of conlideiice in one another. So many presi- 
dents of savings banks, even those belonging to the Young 
Men's Christian Association, run oif with the funds; so 
many raihoad and insurance companies are in the hands of 
receivers; there is so much bankruptcy on every hand, that 
all capital is Iield in the nervous clutch of fear. Slowly, 
but surely, we are coming back to honest methods in busi- 
ness. Confidence will return, and then enterprise will un- 
lock the safe and money will again circulate as of yore; 
the dollars will leave their hiding places, and everyone will 
be seeking investment. 

For my part I do not ask any interference on the part of 
the government except to undo the wrong it has done. 1 
(!<) not ask that money be made out of nothing. I do not 
ask for the prosperity born of paper. But I do ask for the 
renionetization of silver. Silver was demonetized by fraud. 
It was an imposition upon every solvent man; a fraud 
upon every honest debtor in the United States. It assas- 
sinated labor. It was done in the interest of avarice and 
giT( (1, and should be undone by honest men. 

The farmers should vote only for such men as are able 
and willing to guard and advance the interests of labor. 
We should know better than to vote for men who will de- 
li I)erately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon 
CiUKuia lumber, when every farmer in the States is a pur- 
chaser of lumber. People who liv^e upon the prairies ought 
to vote for cheap lumber. We should protect ourselves. 
\V(» ought to have intelligence enough to know what we 
want and how to get it. The real laboring men of this 
coimtry can succeed if they are united. By laboring men, 
I (h) not mean only the farmers. I mean all who contri- 
bute in some way to the general welfare. They should 



20 COL. INGERSOLLS 

forget prejudices and p irty names, and remember only the 
best interests of the people. Let us see if we cannot pro- 
tect every de^partment of industry. Let us see if all prop- 
vvty cannot be protected alike and taxed alike, whether 
owned by individuals or corporations. 

Wliere industry creates and justice protects, prosperity 
dwells. y* 

V^ ILLINOIS. 

Lot me tell you something about Illinois. We have fifty- 
^ix thousand square miles of land — nearly thirty-six mil- 
lion acres. Upon these plains we can raise enough to feed 
and clothe twenty million people. Beneath these prairies 
were hidden, millions of ai^es ago, by that old miser, the 
sun, thirty-six thousand square miles of coal. The aggre- 
i^ale thickness of these veins is at least fifteen feet. Think 
of a column of coal one mile square and one hundred miles 
high ! All this came from the sun. What a sunbeam such 
a column would bo ! Think of all this force, willed and 
left to us by the dead morning <,)f the world ! Think of 
the fireside of the future around which will sit the fathers, 
mothers and children of the years to be I Think of the 
sweet and happy faces, the loving and tender eyes that will 
glow and gleam in the sacred light of all these flames ! 

We have the best country in the world. Is there any 
reason that our farmers should not be prosperous and happy 
men t They have every advantage, and within their reach 
aie ail the comforts and conveniences of life. 

Do not get the land fever and think you must buy all the 
land that joins you. Get out of debt as soon as you pos- 
sibly can. A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest 
field. There is no business under the sun that can pay ten 
per cent. 

WHAT A DOLLAR CAN DO. 

Ainsworth R. Spofford gives the following ikcts. about 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 21 

interest: " Oue dollar loaned for one hundred years at six 
percent., with the interest collected annually and added 
to the principal, will amount to three hundred and forty 
dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand 
two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it 
amounts only to nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. 
At ten per cent, it is thirteen thousand eight hundred and 
nine dollars, or about seven hundred times as much. At 
twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and sev- 
enty-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. 
x\t eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hun- 
dred and forty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twen- 
ty-four per cent, (which we sometimes hear talked of) it 
reaches the enormous sum of two billion five hundred and 
fifty-one million seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand 
four hundred and four dollars." 

One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per 
cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal 
to our national debt. 

Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the 
hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at 
night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, 
he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt as soon as 
you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and 
lazy economy long enough. 

HOW A MAN SHOULD TREAT HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN. 

Above all, let every farmer treat his wife and children 
with infinite kindness. Give your sons and daughters every 
advantage within your power. In the air of kindness they 
will grow about you like flowers. They will fill your homes 
with sunshine and all your years with joy. Do not try to 
nil" by force. A blow from a parent leaves a scar on the 
teoul. I should feel ashained to die surrounded by children 



^2 Col. ingkrsoli. s 

I had whipped. Think of fuclhiix upon your dying Kps the 
kiss of a ciiikl you had struck. 

See to it that yuur wife has every convenience. Make 
her life worth Uving. Never aUov/ her to become a servant. 
Wives, weary and worn ; njoUiers, wrinkled and bent be- 
fore their time, till huines with grief and shamO. If you 
are not able to hire help for your wives, help them your- 
selves. See that they have the best utensils to work with. 
Women cannot create things by magic. Have plenty of 
wood and coal — good cellars and plenty in them. Have 
cisterns, so that you can have plenty of rainwater for wash- 
ing. Do not rely on a barrel and a board. When the rain 
comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the 
barrel. 

Farmers should live like princes. Eat the best things 
you raise and sell the rest. Have good things to cook and 
good things to cook with. Of all people in our country, 
you should live the best. Throw your miserable little stoves 
out of the window. Get ranges, and have them so built 
that your wife need not burn her face off to get you a break- 
fast. Do not make iier cook in a kitchen hot as the ortho- 
dox perdition. The beef, not the cook, should be roasted. 
It is just as easy to have things convenient and right as to 
have them any other way. 

INGERSOLL ON COOKERY. 

Cooking is one of the fine arts. Give your wives and 
daughters things to cook, and things to cook with, and they 
will soon become most excellent cooks. Good cooking is 
the basis of civilization. The man whose arteries and veins 
are filled with rich blood made of good and well-cooked 
food, has pluck, courage, endunince and noble impulses. 
Remember that your wife should have things to cook with. 

In the good old days there would be eleven children in 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES, 23 

the family and only one skillet. Everything was broken 
or cracked or loaned or lost. 

There ought to be a law making it a crime, punishable 
by imprisonment, to fry beefsteak. Broil it ; it is just as 
easy, and when broiled it is delicious. Fried beefsteak is 
not fit for a wild beast. You can broil even on a stove. 
Shut the front damper — open the back one, then take off a 
griddle. There will then be a draft downwards through 
this opening. Put on your steak, using a wire broiler, and 
not a particle of smoke will touch it, for the reason that the 
smoke goes down. If you try to broil it with the front 
damper open, the smoke will rise. For broiling, coal, even 
soft coal, makes a better fire than wood. 

There is no reason why farmers should not have fresh 
meat all the year round. There is certainly no sense in 
stuffing yourself full of salt meat every morning, and making 
a well or a cistern of yonr stomach for the rest of the day. 
Every farmer should have an ice house. Upon or near 
every farm is some stream from which plenty of ice can be 
obtained, and the long summer days made delightful. Dr. 
Draper, one of the world's greatest scientists, says that ice 
water is healthy, and that it has done away with many of 
the low forms of fever in the great cities. Ice has become 
one of the necessaries of civilized life, and without it there 
is very little comfort. 

V THE HAPPY HOME. 

Make your homes pleasant. Have your houses warm 
and comfortable for the winter. Do not build a story-and- 
a-half house. The half-story is simply an oven in which, 
during the summer, you will bake every night, and feel in 
the morning as though only the rind of yourself was left. 

Decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap 
engravings. The cheapest are far better than none. Have 
books — have papers, and read them, Yoi^ have wore 



24 COL. INGERSOLLS 

leisure than the dwellers in cities. Beautify jour grounds 
with plants and flowers and vines. Have good gardens. 
Remember that everything of beauty tends to the elevation 
of man. Every little morning glory whose purple bosom 
is thrilled with the amorous kisses of the sun, tends to put 
a blossom in your heart. Do not judge of the value of 
everything by the market reports. Every flower about a 
house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine, 
climbing and blossoming, tells of love and joy. 

Make your houses comfortable. Do not huddle together 
m a little room around a red-hot stove, with every window 
fastened down. Do not live in this poisoned atmosphere, 
and then, when one of your children dies, put a piece in 
the papers commencing with, "Whereas, it has pleased 
divine Providence to remove from our midst — ." Have 
plenty of air, and plenty of warmth. Comfort is health. 
Do not imagine anything is unhealthy simply because it is 
pl-easant. This is an old and foolish idea. 

Let your children sleep. Do not drag them from their 
beds in the darkness of night. Do not compel them to 
associate all that is tiresome, irksome and dreadful with 
cultivating the soil. In this way you bring farming into 
hatred and disrepute. Treat your children with infinite 
kindness — treat them as equals. There is no happiness in 
a home not filled with love. Where the husband hates his 
v/ife — where the wife hates the husband ; where children 
hate their parents and each other — there is a hell upon 
earth. 

There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest 
and most cultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing 
the fields to make men cross, cruel and crabbed. To look 
upon the sunny slopes covered with daisies does not tend 
to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the happiness of 
those he loves, elevates himself, no matter wli^ther he 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 2 5 

works in the dark and dreary shops, or in the perfumed 
fields. To work for others is, in reality, the only way in 
which a man can work for himself. Selfishness is io:nor- 
ance. Speculators cannot make unless somebody loses. In 
the realm of speculation, every success has at least one 
victim. The harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and 
injures none. For him to succeed, it is not necessary that 
some one should fail. The same is true of all producers — 
of all laborers. 

THE colonel's VIEW OF " SOLID COMFORT." 

I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a 
promise of joy as that of the farmer in the early winter. 
He has his cellar filled — he has made every preparation for 
the days of snow and storm — he looks forward to three 
months of ease and rest ; to three months of fireside con- 
tent; three months with wife and children; three months 
of long, delightful evenings ; three months of home ; three 
months of solid comfort. 

When the life of the farmer is such as I have described, 
the cities and towns will not be filled with want — the streets 
will not be crowded with wrecked rogues, broken bankers, 
and bankrupt speculators. The fields will be tilled, and 
country villages, almost hidden by trees^ and vines, and 
flowers, filled with industrious and happy people, will nes- 
tle in every vale and gleam like gems on every plain. 

The idea must be done away with that there is something 
intellectually degrading in cultivating the soil. Nothing 
can be noble*, than to be useful. Idleness should not be 
respectable. 

If farmers will cultivate well, and without waste ; if they 
will so build that their houses will be warm in winter and 
cool in summer; if they will plant trees and beautify their 
homes; if they will occupy their leisure in reading,' in 
thinking, in improving their minds and in devising ways 



26 eoL. ingersoll's 

and means to make their business profitable and pleasant ; 
if they will live nearer together and cultivate sociability; 
if they will come together often ; if they will have reading 
rooms and cultivate music; if they will have bath-rooms, 
ice-houses and good gardens ; if their wives can have an 
easy time ; if the nights can be taken for sleep and the 
evenings for enjoyment, everybody will be in love with the 
fields. Happiness should be the object of life, and if life 
on the farm can be made really happy, the children will 
grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods 
and the old home. Around the farm will cling and cluster 
the happy memories of the delightful years. 

Remember, I pray you, that yon are in partnership with 
all labor — that you should join hands with all the sons and 
daughters of toil, and that all who work belong to the same 
noble family. 

For my part, I envy the mati who has lived on the same 
bri)ad acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields 
where in youth he played, and lives where his father lived 
and died. 

I can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life than in 
the quiet of the country, out of the mad race for money, 
])lace and power — far from the demands of business — out 
of the dusty highway where fools struggle and strive for 
the hollow praise of other fools. 

Surrounded by these pleasant fields and faithful friends, 
by those I have loved, 1 hope to end my days. And this I 
hope may be the lot of all who hear my voice. I hope that 
you, in the country, in houses covered with vines and 
clothed with flowers, looking from the open w^indow upon 
rustling fields ot corn and wheat, over which will run the 
sunshine and the shadow, surrounded by those whose lives 
you have filled with joy, will pass away serenely as th^ 
^iitumii (lies. 



II.— COL. INOERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECH TO THE 
VETERAN SOLDIERS. 

DELIVERED AT INDIANAPOLIS. 

REASONS WHY TIIP: COLONEL IS NOT A DEMOCRAT. 

\Ffom the Indianapolis Journal^ , H 

P ^ 

Ladies and Gentlemen — Fellow Citizens and Citizen 
Soldiers: I tun opposed to the Democratic party, and I 
will tell jou why. Every State that seceded from the 
United States was a Democratic State. Every ordinance 
of secession that was drawn was drawn by a Democrat. 
Every man that endeavored to tear the old fliig from the 
heaven that it enriches was a Democrat. Every man that 
tried to destroy this nation was a Democrat. Every enemy 
this great repubhc lias had for twenty years has been a 
Democrat. Every man that shot Union soldiers was a 
Democrat. Every man that starved Union soldiers and 
refused them in tlie extremity of death, a crust, was a Dem- 
ocrat. Every man that loved slavery better than liberty 
was a Democrat. The man that assassinated Abraham 
Lincoln was a Democrat. Every man that sympathized 
with the assassin — every man glad that the noblest Presi- 
dent ever elected was assassinated, was a Democrat. Every 
man that wanted the privilege of whipping another man to 
make him work for him for nothing and pay him with lashes 
on his naked back, was a Democrat. Every man that 
raised blood-hounds to pursue human beings was a Demo- 
crat. Every man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, 

27 



28 COL. INGERSOLLS 

crouching mothers, babes from their breasts, and sold them 
into slavery, was a Democrat. Every man that impaired 
the credit of the United States, every man that swore we 
would never pay the bonds, every man that swore we would 
never redeem the greenbacks, every maligner of his coun- 
try's credit, every calumniator of his country's honor, was 
a Democrat. Every man that resisted the draft, every man 
that hid in the bushes and shot at Union men simply be- 
cause they were endeavoring to enforce the laws of their 
country, was a Democrat. Every man that wept over the 
corpse of slavery was a Democrat. Every man that cursed 
Lincoln because he issued the proclamation of emancipation 
— the grandest paper since the Declaration of Independence 
' — every one of them was a Democrat. Every man that 
denounced the soldiers that bared their bosoms to the storms 
of shot and shell for the honor of America and for the sacred 
rights of man, was a Democrat. Every man that wanted 
an uprising in the North, that wanted to release the rebel 
prisoners that they might burn down the homes of Union 
soldiers above the heads of their wives and children, while 
the brave husbands, the heroic fathers, were in the front 
lighting for the honor of the old flag, every one of them was 
a Democrat. I am not through yet. Every man that be- 
lieved this glorious nation of ours is a confederacy, every 
man that beheved the old banner carried by our fathers 
through the Revolution, through the war of 1812, carried 
by our brothers over the plains of Mexico, carried by our 
brothers over the fields of the rebellion, simply stood for a 
contract, simply stood for an agreement, was a Democrat. 
Every man who believed that any State could go out of the 
Union at its pleasure, every man that believed the grand 
fabric of the American Government could be made to crum- 
ble instantly into dust at the touch of treason, was a Dem- 
ocrat. Every man that helped to burn orphan asylums in 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 29 

New York, was a Democrat ; every man that tried to fire 
the city of New York, although he knew that thousands 
would perish, and knew that the great serpents of flame 
leaping from buildings would clutch childrcii from their 
mothers' arms — every wretch that did it was a Democrat. 
Recollect it ! Every man that tried to spread small-pox 
and yellow fever in the North, as the instrumentalities of 
civilized war, was a Democrat. Soldiers, every scar you 
have got on your heroic bodies was given you by a Demo- 
crat. Every scar, every arm that is lacking, every limb 
that is gone, every scar is a souvenir of a Democrat. I 
want you to recollect it. Every man that was the enemy 
of human liberty in this country was a Democrat. Every 
man that wanted the fruit of all the heroism of all the ages 
to turn to ashes upon the lips — every one was a Democrat. 

WUY THE COLONEL IS A REPUBLICAN. 

I am a Republican. I will tell you why : This is the 
only free government in the world. The Republican party 
made it so. The Republican party took the chains from 
4,000,000 of people. The Republican party, with the 
wand of progress, touched the auction-block and it became 
a school-house. The Republican party put down the re- 
bellion, saved the nation, kept the old banner afloat in the 
air, and declared that slavery of every kind should be ex- 
tirpated from the face of the continent. What more? I 
am a Republican because it is the only free party that ever 
existed. It is a party that has a platform as broad as hu- 
manity, a platform as broad as the human race, a party 
that says you shall have all the fruit of the labor of your 
hands, a party that says you may think for yourself; a 
part^' that says no chains for the hands, no fetters for the 
soul. (A voice — "Amen." Cheers.) At this point the 
rain began to descend, and it looked as if a heavy shower 



30 COL. INGERSOLLS 

was impending. Several umbrellas were put up. Gov. 

Noyes — "God bless you! What is rain to soldiers?" 
Voice — "Go ahead; we don't mind the rain." (It was 
proposed to adjourn the meeting to Masonic Hall, but the- 
motion was voted down by an overwhelming majority, and 
Mr. Ingersoil proceeded.) I am a Eepublican because the 
Repubhcan party says this country is a nation, and not a 
confederacy. 1 am here in Indiana to speak, and I have 
as good a right to speak here in Indiana as though I had 
been born on this stand — not because the State flag of In- 
diana waves over me. I would not know it if I should see 
it. You have the same right to speak in Illinois, not be- 
cause the State flag of Illinois waves over you, but because 
that banner, rendered sacred by the blood of all the heroes, 
waves over me and you. I am in favor of this being a na- 
tion. Think of a man gratifying his entire ambition in the 
State of Rhode Island. We want this to be a nation, and 
you can't have a great, grand, splendid people without a 
great, grand, splendid country. The great plains, the 
sublime mountains, the great rushing, roaring rivers, shores 
lashed by two oceans, and the grand anthem of Niagara, 
mingle and enter, as it were, in the character of every 
American citizen, and make him or tend to make him a 
great and a grand character. I am for the Republican 
party because it says the government has as much right, 
as much power to protect its citizens at home as abroad. 
The Republican party don't say you have to go away from 
home to get the protection of the government. The Demo- 
cratic party says the government can't march its troops 
into the South to protect the rights of the citizens. It is a 
lie. The government claims the right, and it is conceded 
that the government has the right, to go to your house, 
while you are sitting by your fireside with your wife and 
children about you, and the old lady knitting, and the cat 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 3 I 

playing with the yarn, and everybody happy and sweet — 
the government claims the right to go to your fireside and 
take you by force and put you into the army : take you 
down to the valley and the shadow of hell, set you by the 
ruddy, roaring guns, and make you fight for your flag. 
Now, that being so, when the war is over and your country 
is victorious, and you go back to your home, and a lot of 
Democrats want to trample upon your rights, I want to 
know if the government that took you from your fireside 
and made you fight for it, I want to know if it is not bound 
to fight for you. The flag that will not protect its pro- 
tectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it 
waves. The government that will not defend its defenders 
is a disgrace to the nations of the world. I am a Republi- 
can because the Eepublican party says, *' We will protect 
the rights of American citizens at home, and if necessary 
we will march an army into any State to protect the rights 
of the humblest American citizen in that State." I am a 
Republican because that party, allows me to be free — allows 
me to do my own thinking in my own way. I am a Re- 
publican because it is a party grand enough and splendid 
enough and sublime enough to invite every human being 
in favor of liberty and progress to fight shoulder to shoul- 
der for the advancement of mankind. It invites the Meth- 
odist ; it invites the Catholic ; it invites the Presbyterian 
and every kind of sectarian ; it invites the free-thinker ; it 
invites the infidel, provided he is in favor of giving to every 
other human being every chance and every right that he 
claims for himself I am a Republican, I tell you. There 
is room in the Republican air for every wing ; there is 
room on the Republican sea for every sail. Republicanism 
says to every man : '' Let your soul be like an eagle ; fly 
out in the great dome of thought, an i question the stars 
for yourself" But the Democratic party says : '^ Be blind 



32 COL. INGERSOLLS 

owls ; sit on the dry limb of a dead tree, and only hoot 
when Tilden & Co. tell jou to." 

In the Republican party there are no followers. We are 
all leaders. There is not a party chain. There is not a 
party lash. Any man that does not love this country, any 
man that does not love liberty, any man that is not in favor 
of human pro->ress, that is not in favor of giving to others 
all he claims for himself; we don't ask him to vote the 
Republican ticket. You can vote it if you please, and if 
there is any Democrat within hearing who expects to die 
before another election, we are willing that he should vote 
one Republican ticket, simply as a consolation upon his 
death-bed. What more ? I am a Republican because that 
party believes in free labor, It believes that free labor 
will give us wealth. It believes in free thought, because it 
believes that free thought will give us truth. You don't 
know what a grand party you belong to. I never want any 
holier or grander title of nobility than that I belong to the 
Republican party and have fought for the liberty of man. 
The Republican party, I say, believes in free labor. The 
Republican party also believes in slavery. What kind of 
slavery ? In enslaving the forces of nature. 

We believe that free labor, tliat free thought, have en- 
slaved the forces of nature, and made them work for man. 
We make old attraction of gravitation work for us; we 
make the lightning do our errands ; we make steam ham- 
mer and fashion what we need. The forces of nature are 
the slaves of the Republican party. They have got no backs 
to Le whipped ; they have got no hearts to be torn — no 
hearts to be broken ; they cannot be separated from their 
wives; they cannot be dragged from the bosoms of their 
husbands ; they wo k night and day and they cannot tire. 
You cannot whip tl)em, you cannot starve them, and a 
Democrat even can be trusted with one of them. I tell 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 33 

you I am a Republican. I believe, as I told you, that 
free labor will give us these slaves. Free labor will 
produce all these things, and everything you have got 
to-day has been produced by free labor, nothing by slave 
labor. 

Slavery never invented but one machine, and that was a 
threshing-machine in the shape of a whip. Free labor has 
invented all the machines. We want to come down to the 
philosophy of these things. The problem of free labor, 
when a man works for the wife he loves, when he works 
for the little children he adores — the problem is to do the 
most work in the shortest space of time. The problem of 
slavery is to do the least work in the longest 'space of time. 
That is the difference. Free labor, love, affection — they 
have invented everything of use in this world. I am a 
Republican. 

I tell you, my friends, this world is getting better every 
day, and the Democratic party is getting smaller every day. 
See the advancement we have made in a few years, see what 
we have done. We have covered this nation with wealth, 
and glory, and with liberty. This is the first free govern- 
ment in the world. The Republican party is the first party 
that was not founded on some compromise with the devil. 
It is the first party of pure, square, honest principle ; the 
first one. And we have got the first free country that ever 
existed. 

And right here I want to thank every soldier that 
fought to make it free, every one living and dead. I 
want to thank you again, and again, and again. Ton made 
the first free government in the world, and we must not 
forget the dead heroes. If they were here they would vote 
the Republican ticket, every one of them. I tell you we 
must not forget them. 



34 COL. INGERSOLLS 

OOL. INGERSOLl's remarkable vision ONE OF THE MOST 

ELOQUENT EXTRACTS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

The past, as it were, rises before me like a dream. Again 
we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the 
sound of preparation — the music of the boisterous drums— 
the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of 
vissemblages, and hear the appeals of orators ; we see the 
pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men ; and 
in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we 
have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no 
more. We are with them when they enlist in the great 
army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. 
Some are walking for the last time in quiet woody places 
with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings 
and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly 
part forever. Others are bending over cradles kissing 
babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of 
old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them 
and press them to their hearts again and again, and say 
nothing ; and some are talking with wives, and endeavoring 
with brave words spoken in the old tones to drive away the 
awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing 
ia the door with the babe in her arms — standing in the sun- 
light sobbing — at the turn of the road a hand waves — she 
answers by holding high in her loving hands the child. He 
is gone, and forever. 

We see them all as they march proudly away under the 
flaunting flags, keeping time to the wild grand music of 
war — marching down the streets of the great cities — through 
the towns and across the prairies — down to the fields of 
glory, to do and to die for the eternal right. 

We go with them one and all. We are by their side on 
all the gory fields, in all the hospitals of pain — on all the 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES, 3^ 

weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild 
storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in 
ravines running with blood— in the farrows of old fields. 
We are with them between contending hosts, unable to 
move, wild with tlyrst, the life ebbing slowly away among 
the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and 
t(^rn with shells in the trenches of forts, and in the whirl- 
^vind of the charge, where men become iron with nerves 

of steel. 

We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine, 
but buman speech can never tell what they endured. 

We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. 
We see the maiden in the shadow of her sorrow. We see 
tbe silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief.^ 
The past rises before us, and we see four millions of 
human beings governed by the lash— w^e see them bound 
hand and foot— we hear the strokes of cruel whips— we see 
the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. We 
see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty un- 
s{)eakable ! Outrage infinite ! 

Four million bodies in chains— four million souls in fetters. 
All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child, 
trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this 
vv-as done under our own beautiful banner of the free. 

The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of 
tlic bursting shell. The broken fetters fall There heroes 
(lii;d. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and 
women and children. The wand of progress touches the 
auction-block, the slave-pen, and the whipping-post, and we 
see liomes and firesides, and school-houses and books, and 
where all was want and crime, and cruelty and fear, we see 
the faces of the free. 

These heroes are dead. They died for liberty— they 
(iied for ns. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they 



36 COL. ingersoll's 

made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under 
the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, 
the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of 
the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in the 
windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red with other 
wars — they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the 
roar of conflict, they found the serenit}' of death. I have 
one sentiment for the soldiers living and dead — cheers for 
the living and tears for the dead. 

MORE SOLID SHOT. 

Now, my friends, I have given you a few reasons why I 
am a Republican. I have given you a few reasons why I 
am not a Democrat. Let me say another thing. The 
Democratic party opposed every movement of the army of 
the Republic, every one. Don't be fooled. Imagine the 
meanest resolution that you can think of — that is the reso- 
lution the Democratic party passed. Imagine the meanest 
thing you can think of — that is what they did ; and I want 
you to recollect that the Democratic party did these devilish 
things when the fate of this nation was trembling in the 
balance of war. I want you to recollect another thing: 
when they tell you about hard times, that the Democratic 
party made the hard times; that every dollar we owe to- 
day w^as made by the Southern and Northern Democracy. 

When we commenced to put down the rebellion we had 
to borrow money, and the Democratic party went into the 
markets of the world and impaired the credit of the United 
States. They slandered, they lied, they maligned the 
credit of the United States, and to such an extent did they 
do this, that at one time during the war paper was only 
worth about 34 cents on the dollar. Gold went up to $2.90. 
What did that mean ? It meant that greenbacks were worth 



THREE GREAT LECTURES. 37 

34 cents on the dollar. AYliat became of the other 66 
cents ? They were lied out of the greenbacks, they were 
caiunmiated out of the greenbacks, by the Democratic 
party of the North. Two-thirds of the debt, two-thirds of 
the burden now upon the shoulders of American industry, 
were placed there by the slanders of the Democratic party 
of the North, and the other third by the Democratic party 
of the South. And when you pay your taxes keep an 
account and charge two-thirds to the Northern Democracy 
and one-third to the Southern Democracy, and whenever 
you have to earn the money to pay tlie taxes, when you 
have to blister your hands to earn that money, pull off the 
blisters, and under each one, as the foundation, you will 
find a Democratic lie. 

Recollect that the Democratic party did all the things of 
which I have told you, when the fate of our nation was 
submitted to the arbitrament of the sword. Recollect they 
did these things when your husbands, your fathers, your 
brothers, your chivalric sons were lighting, bleeding, suffer- 
ing upon the fields of the South, where shot and shell were 
crashing through their sacred flesh, where they were lying 
upon the field of battle, the blood slowly oozing from the 
pallid, mangled lips of death ; when they were in the hos- 
pitals of pain, dreaming bi-oken dreams of home, and 
seeing fever pictures of the ones they loved ; when they 
were in the prison pens of the South, with no covering but 
tlie clouds, no bed except the frozen earth, no food except 
such as worms had refused to eat, and no friends except 
insanity and death. Recollect it. I have ofcen said that 
1 wished there were words of |)ure hatred out of which I 
might construct sentences like serpents, sentences like 
snakes, sentences that would writhe and hiss — I could then 
give my opinion of the Northern allies of the Southern 
rebels, 



38 COL. ingersoll's 



THREE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 

There are three questions now submitted to the American 
people. The first is, Shall the people that saved this 
country rule it ? Shall the men who saved the old flag hold 
it ? Shall the men who saved the ship of State sail it ? or 
shall the rebels walk her quarter-deck, give the orders and 
sink it. That is the question. Shall a solid South, a united 
South, united by assassination and murder, a South solidi- 
fied by the shot-gun ; shall a united South, with the aid of 
a divided North, shall they control this great and splendid 
country ? Well, then the North must wake up. We are 
right back where we were in 1861. This is simply a pro- 
longation of the war. This is the war of the idea, the other 
was the war of the musket. The other was the war of 
caimon, this is the war of thought; and we have got to 
beat them in this war of thought, recollect that. The ques- 
tion is. Shall the men who endeavored to destroy this 
country rule it? Shall the men that said. This is not a 
nation, have charge of the nation? 

i'lie next question is. Shall we pay our debts? We had 
to b(jrrow some money to pay for shot and shell to shoot 
Democrats with. We found that we could get along with 
a few less Democrats, but not with any less country, and 
so we borrowed the money, and the question now is, will 
we pay it ? And which party is the most apt to pay it, the 
Republican party, that made the debt — the party that swore 
it was constitutional, or the party that said it was unconsti- 
tutional ? Whenever a Democrat sees a greenback, the 
greenback says to the Democrat, " I am one of the fellows 
that whipped you.'' Whenever a Republican sees a green- 
back, the greenback says to him, "You and I put down 
the rebellion and saved the country." Now, my friends, 
you have heard a great deal about iinances. Nearly every- 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 39 

body that talks about it gets as dry as if they had been 

in the final home of the Democratic party for forty years. 

INGERSOLL ON THE MONEY QUESTION. 

I will give you my ideas about finances. In the first 
place the government don't support the people ; the people 
support the government. The government passes around 
the hat, the government passes around the alms dish. 
True enough, it has a musket behind it, but it is a perpetual, 
chronic pauper. It passes, I told you, the ahus-dish, and 
we all throw in our share — except Tilden. This govern- 
ment is a perpetual consumer. You understand me, the 
government don't plow ground, the government don't 
raise corn and wheat ; the government is simply a perpetual 
consumer ; we support the government. Now, the idea 
that the government can make money for you and I to live 
on — why, it is the same as though my hired man should 
issue certificates of my indebtedness to him for me to 
live on. 

Some people tell me that the government can impress its 
sovereignty on a piece of paper, and that is money. Well, 
if it is, what's the use of wasting it making one dollar bills? 
It takes no more ink and no more paper — why not make 
^1000 bills? Why not make $100,000,000 bills and all be 
billionaires ? 

If the government can make money, what on earth does 
it c(;llect taxes from you and me for? Why don't it make 
what money it wants, take the taxes out, and give the 
balance to us ? Mr. Greenbacker, suppose the government 
issued $1,000,000,000 to-morrow, how would you get any 
of it? (A voice — Steal it.) I was not speaking to the 
Democrats. — You would not get any of it unless you .had 
something to exchange for it. The government would not 



40 COL. INGERSOLLS 

go around and give you your average. You have to have 
some corn, or wlieat, or pork to give for it. 

Plow do you got your money ? By work. Where -jom? 
You have to dig it out of the ground. That is whr "> it 
comes from. In old times there were some men , Ik ^,bt 
tlKjy could get some way to turn the baser metals :^lo g ^M. 
and old gray-haired men, trembling, tottering on the verge 
of the grave, were hunting for something to turn ordinary 
metals into gold ; they were searching for the fountain of 
eternal youth, but they did not find it. No human ear has 
ever heard the silver gurgle of the spring of immortal 
youth. 

There used to be mechanics that tried to make perpetual 
motion by combinations of wheels, shifting weiL'hts, and 
rolling balls; but somehow the machine would never quite 
run. A ])erpetual fountain of greenbacks, of wealth with- 
out labor, is just as foolish as a fountain of eternal youth. 
Tlie idea that you can produce money without labor is just 
as foolish as the idea of perpetual motion. They are old 
follies under new names. 

Let me tell you another thing. The Democrats seem to 
tliiidv that you can fail to keep a promise so long that it is 
as good as though you had kept it. They say you can 
stain]) the sovereignty of the government upon paper. The 
other day I saw a piece of silver bearing the sovereign 
stamp of Julius Ca3sar. Julius C?esar has been dust about 
two thousand ^^ears, but that piece of silver was worth just 
as much as though Julius CfEsar was at the head of the 
Roman legions. Was it his sovereignty that made it valu- 
able 'i Suppose he had put it upon a i)iece of paper — it 
would have been of no more value than a Democratic 
promise. 

Another thing, my friends, this debt will be paid ; yon 
need not worry about that. The DcuKK'rats ought to ]iay 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 4 1 

it. Tliej lost the suit and they ouglit to pay the costs. 
But we are willing to pay our share. It will be paid. The 
holders of the debt have i^jot a mortgage on a continent. 
They hare a mortgage on the honor of the Eepublican 
party, and it is on record. Every blade of gi..3s that 
grows upon tiilc continent is a guarantee that the debt will 
be ])aid ; every field of bannered corn in the great, glorious 
West is a guarantee that the debt will be paid ; all the coal 
put 'ciT:?y in the ground millions of years ago by that old 
miser, the sun, is a guarantee that every dollar of that debt 
will be paid ; all the cattle on the prairies, pastures and 
plains, every one of them is a guarantee that this debt will 
be paid ; every pine standing in the somber forests of the 
North, waiting for the woodman^s ax, is a guarantee that 
this debt will be paid ; all the gold and silver hid in the 
Siei^a Nevadas, waiting for the miner's pick, is a guaran= 
tee tli\t the debt will be paid ; every locomotive, with its 
n:usclei: of iron and breath of flame, and all the boys and 
girls bendinir over their books at school, every dimpled 
child in the cradle, every good man and every good woman, 
and every man that votes the Republican ticket is ^- guar- 
antee that the debt will be Daid. 

MORE ELOQUENCE. 

What is the next question ? The next question is, will 
we protect the Union men in the South ? I tell you the 
white Union men have suffered enough. It is a crime in 
the Southern States to be a Republican. It is a crime in 
every Southern State to love this countr}^, to believe in the 
sacred rights of men. 

I tell you the colored people have suffered enough. They 
have been owned by Democrats for two hundred years. 
Worse than that: tliey have been forced to keep the com- 
pany of their owners. It is a terrible thing to live with a 



42 COL. INGERSOLLS 

man that steals from you. They have suffered enough. 
For two liundred years they were branded like cattle. Yes, 
for two hundred years every human tie was torn asunder 
b}^ the cruel hand of avarice and greed. For two hundred 
years children were sold from their mothers, husbands from 
their wives, brothers from brothers, and sisters from sis- 
ters. There was not during the whole rebelHon a single 
negro that was not our friend. We are willing to be recon- 
ciled to our Southern brethren when they will treat our 
friends as men. When they will be just to the friends of 
this counti'y ; when tliey are in favor of allowing everj^ 
American citizen to have his rights — then we are their 
friends. We are willing to trust them with the Nation 
when tliey are the friends of the Nation. We are willing 
to trust them with liberty when they believe in liberty. We 
are willing to trust them with the black man when they 
cease riding in the darkness of night — those masked 
wretches — to the hut of the freedman, and notwithstanding 
the ))rayers and supplications of his family, shoot him down ; 
when they cease to consider the massacre of Hamburg as a 
Democratic triumph, then, I say, we will be tlieir friends, 
and not before. 

Now, my friends, thousands of the Southern people, and 
thousands of the Northern Democrats, are afraid that the 
negroes are going to pass them in the race for life. And, 
Mr. Democrat, he will do it unless you attend to your busi- 
/icss. The simple fact that you are white cannot save you 
always. Yon have got to be industrious, honest, to culti- 
vate a justice. If you don't the colored race will pass you, 
,is sure as you live. I am for giving every man a chance. 
Anybody that can pass me is welcome. 

I believe, my friends, that the intellectual domain of the 
future, like the land used to be in the State of Illinois, is 
jpen to pre-en]ption. The fellow that gets a fact first, that 



THREE GREA'l- SPEECllIlS. 43 

is his ; that gets an idea first, that is his. Every round in 
the ladder of fan)e, from the one that touches the ground 
to the last one that leans against the shining summit o: 
ambition, belongs to the foot that gets upon it first. 

Mr. Democrat, — I point down because they are nearly all 
on the first round of the ladder,— if you can't climb, stand 
one side and let the deserving negro pass. 

INGERSOLL's big irORSE-RACE. 

1 must tell you one thing. I have told it so much, and 
you have all heard it, I have no doubt, fifty times from 
others, but I am going to tell it again because I like it. 

Suppose there was a great horse-race here to-day, free to 
every horse in the world, and to all the mules, and all the 
scrubs, and all the donkeys. At the tap of the drum they 
come to the line, and the judges say " it is a go." Let me 
ask you, what does the blooded horse, rushing ahead, with 
nostrils distended, drinking in the breath of his own swift- 
ness, with his mane flying liker oanner of victory, with his 
veins standing out all over him, is if a net of life had been 
cast around him— with his thin i 9ck, his high withers, liis 
tremulous flanks— what does he care how many mules and 
donkeys run on that track? But the Democratic scrun^ 
with his chuckle head and lop-ears, with his tail full of 
cuckle-burs, jumping high and short, and digging in tlie 
giound when he feels the breath of the coming mule on his 
cuckle-bur tail, he is the chap that jumps the track and 
says, ''I am down on mule equality." 

My friends, the Republican party is the blooded horse in 
this race. 

I stood, a little while ago, in the city of Paris, wfiere 
stood the Bastile, where now stands the column of July, 
surmounted by the flgure of liberty. In its right hand is a 
broken chain, in its left hand a banner; upon its shining 



44 <^0L. INGERSOLLS 

forehead a glittering star — and as I looked upon it I said, 
such is the Republican party of my country. Tlio other day 
going along the road I came to tlie place where the road 
had been changed, but the guide-board was as tln^y had 
put it twenty years before. It pointed diligently in the 
direction ofadesohite field. Now, that guide-post had been 
there for twenty years. Thousands of people passed, but 
nobody heeded the hand on tlie guide-post, and it stuck 
there through storm and shine, and it pointed as hard as 
ever as if the road was through the desolate field ; and | 
said to myself, such is the Democratic party of the United 
States. 

The other day I came to a river where there had been a 
mill ; a part of it was there yet. An old sign said, '^ Cash 
tor wheat." The old water-wheel was broken, and it had 
been warped by the sun, cracked and split by many winds 
and storms. There hadn't been a grain of wheat ground 
there for twenty years, "^here was nothing in good order 
but the dam ; it was as ood a dam as ever I saw, and I 
said to myself, "such is ihe Democratic party." I was 
going along the road the )ther day, when I came to where 
there had once been a hotel. But the hotel and barn had 
burned down ; nothing remained but the two chimneys, 
monuments of the disaster. In the road there was an old 
sign, upon which were these words: "Entertainment for 
man and beast." The word "man" was nearly burned 
out. There hadn't been a hotel there for thirty years. 
That sign had swung and creaked in the wind ; the snow 
had fallen upon it in the winter, the birds had sung upon it 
in the summer. Nobody ever stopped at that hotel; but 
the sign stuck to it and kept swearing to it, "Entertain- 
ment for man and beast," and I said to myself, " Such is 
the Democratic party of the United States." 

Now, my friends, I want you to vote the Republican 



TiTkEE GREAT SPEECHES. 4S 

ticket. I want you to swear you will not vote for a iiiari 
who opposed piittiiiu^ down the rehellion. i want you to 
swear that you will not vote for a man opi.)0.^ed to the utter 
abolition of slavery. I waut you to swear that you will 
not vote for a man who called the soldiers in the field Lin- 
coln liireliui^s. I want you to swear that you will not vote 
for a man who denounced Lincoln as a tyrant. I want you 
to swtar that you will not vote for any enemy of human 
progress. Go and talk to every Denn-crat 'that you can 
see; get liim l>y the coat-collar, talk to hiin, and hold him 
like Coleridge's Ancient mariner, with your glittering eye; 
hold him, tell him all the mean things his party ever did; 
tell him kindly; tell him in a Christian si)irit, as I do, but 
tell him. Recollect there never was a more important 
election than the one you are going to hold in Lidiana. I 
want you every one to swear that you will vote for glorious 
Ben Harrison. I tell you we must stand by the country. 
It is a glorious country. It permits you and me to be free. 
It is the only country in the world where labor is respected. 
Let us support it. It is the only country in the world 
where the useful man is the only aristocrat. The man that 
works for a dollar a day, goes home at night to his little 
ones^ taking his little boy on his knee, and he thinks that 
boy can achieve anything that the sons of the wealthy man 
can achieve. The free schools are open to him ; he may 
be the richest, the greatest, and the grandest, and that 
fchought sweetens every drop of sweat that rolls down the 
honest face of toil. Vote to save that country. 

ingersoll's beautiful dream. 

My friends, this country is getting better every day. 
Samuel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and ras- 
cals If that is so he ought to be the President. But I 
denounce him as a calumniator of my country ; a maligner 



46 COLo INGERSOLL S 

of this nation. It is not so. This country is covered with asy- 
lums for the aged, the helpless, the insane, the orphan, wound- 
ed soldiers. Thieves and rascals don't build such things. 
In the cities of the Atlantic coast this summer, they built 
floating hospitals, great ships, and took the little children 
from the sub-cellars and narrow, dirty streets of New York 
city, where the Democratic party is the strongest, — took 
these poor waifs and put them in these great hospitals out at 
sea, and let the breezes of ocean kiss the roses of health 
back to their pallid cheeks. Rascals and thieves do not do 
so. When Chicago burned, railroads were blocked with 
the charity of the American people. Thieves and rascals 
did not do so. 

I am a Republican. The world is getting better. Hus- 
bands are treating their wives better than they used to ; 
wives are treating their husbands better. Children are 
better treated than they used to be ; the old whips and gods 
are out of the schools, and they are governing children by 
love and by sense. The world is getting better ; it is get- 
ting better in Maine. It has got better in Maine, in Yer- 
mont. It is getting better in every State of the North. 

I have a dream that this world is growing better and bet- 
ter every day and every year ; that there is more charity, 
more justice, more love every day. I have a dream that 
prisons will not always curse the earth ; that the shadow 
of the gallows will not always fall on the land ; that the 
withered hand of want will not always be stretched out for 
charity ; that finally wisdom will sit in the legislature, just- 
ice in the courts, charity will occupy all the pulpits, and 
that finally the world will be controlled by liberty and love, 
by justice and charity. That is my dream, and if it does 
not come true, it shall not be my fault. Good-bye. (Im- 
mense and prolonged cheering.) 



II.— COL. INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECH ON THV 
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



THE GRANDEST OF DOCUMENTS. 

YFroni the Indianapolis yourna/.] 

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Declaration of Tnde- 
pr'tideiice is the grandest, the bravest, and the protbundest 
])i)Iitical document that was ever signed by the represent- 
atives of the people. It is the embodiment of physical aod 
moral courage and of political wisdom. 

I say physical courage, because it was a declaration of 
war against the most powerful nation then on the globe; a 
dechiration of war by thirteen weak, unorganized colonies; 
a 'declaration of war by a few people, without military 
stores, without wealth, without strength, against the most 
powerful kingdom on the earth ; a declaration of war made 
whe!i the British navy, at that day the mistress of every 
sea, was hovering along the coast of America, looking after 
defenseless towns and villages to ravage and destroy. It 
was made when thousands of English soldiers were upon 
our soil, and when the principal cities of America were in 
the substantial possession of the enemy. And so, I say, 
ail things considered, it was the bravest political document 
ever signed by man. And if it was physically brave, the 
moral courage of the document is almost infinitely beyond 
the physical. They had the courage not only, but they 

47 



48 COL. ingersoll's 

had the ahnost infinite wisdom, to declare that all men are 
created equal. 

With one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they struck 
down all the cruel, heartless barriers that aristocracy, that 
priestcraft, that kingcraft had raised between man and man. 
They struck down with one immortal blow that infamous 
spirit of caste that makes a god almost a beast, and a beast 
almost a god. With one word, with one blow, they wiped 
away and utterly destroyed all that had been done by cen- 
turies of war — centuries of hypocrisy — centuries of in- 
justice. 

What more did they do ? Then they declared that each 
man has a right to live. And what does that mean? It 
means that he has the right to make his living. It means 
that he has the right to breathe the air, to work the land, 
that he stands the equal of every other human being be- 
neath the shining stars ; entitled to the product of his labor 
— the labor of his hand and of his brain. 

What more? That every man has the right to pursue 
his own happiness in his own way. Grander words than 
these have never been spoken by man. 

And what more did these men say ? They laid down 
the doctrine that governments were instituted among men 
for the purpose of preserving the rights of the people. The 
old idea was that people existed solely for the benefit of 
the State — that is to say, for kings and nobles. 

The old idea was that the people were the wards of king 
and priest — that their bodies belonged to one and their 
souls to the other. 

A REVELATION AND REVOLUTION. 

And what more? That the people are the source of 
political power. That was not only a revelation, but it was 
a revolution. It changed the ideas of people with regard 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 49 

to the source of political power. For the first time it made 
human beings men. Wiiat was the old idea? The old 
idea was that no political power came from, nor in any 
manner belonged to, the people. The old idea was that 
the political power came from the clouds ; that the polilwcal 
power came in some miraculous way from heaven ; that it 
came down to kings, and queens, and robbers. That was 
the old idea. The nobles lived upon the labor of the 
people ; the people had no rights ; the nobles stole what 
they had and divided with the kings, and the kings pre- 
tended to divide what they stole with God Almighty. The 
source, then, of political power was from above. The 
people were responsible to the nobles, the nobles to the 
king, and the people had no political rights whatever, no 
more than the wild beasts of the forest. The "kinffs were 
responsible to God, not to the people. The kings were 
responsible to the clouds, not to the toiling millions they 
robbed and plundered. 

And our forefathers, in this declaration of independence, 
reversed this thing, and said : No, the people, they are the 
source of political power, and their rulers, these presidents, 
these kings, are but the agents and servants of the great, 
sublime ])eople. For the first time, really, in the history 
of the world, the king was made to get off" the throne and 
the people were royally seated thereon. The people be- 
came the sovereigns, and the old sovereigns became the 
servants and the agents of the people. It is hard for you 
and me now to imagine even the immense results of that 
change. It is hard for you and me, at this day, to under, 
stand how thoroughly it had been ingrained in the brain of 
almost every man, that the king had some wonderful right 
over him ; that in some strange way the king owned him ; 
that in some miraculous manner he belonged, '^body and 
soul, to somebody who rode on a horse, to somebody with 



5o COL. ingersoll's 

epaulettes on his shoulders, and a tinsel crown upon his 
brainless head. 

Our forefathers had been educated in that idea, and when 
they first landed on American shores they believed it. 
They thought they belonged to somebody, and that they 
must be lo3^al to some thief, who could trace his pedigree 
back to antiquity's most successful robber. 

It took a long time for them to get that idea out of their 
heads and hearts. They were three thousand miles away 
from the despotisms of the old world, and every wave of 
the sea was an assistant to them. The distance lielped 
to disenchant their minds of thatinfatnons belief, and every 
mile between them and the pomp and glory of monarchy 
helped to put republican ideas and thoughts into their minds. 
Besides that, when they came to this country, when the 
savage was in the forest and three thousand miles of 
waves on the other side, menaced by barbarians on the one 
side, and famine on the other, they learned that a man who 
had courage, a man who had thought, was as good as any 
other man in the world, and they built up, as it were, in 
spite of themselves, little republics. And the man that 
had the most nerve and heart was the best man, whether 
he had any noble blood in his veins or not. 

THE EDUCATION OF NATURE. 

It has been a favorite idea with me that our forefathers 
were educated by nature ; that they grew grand as the 
continent upon which they landed ; that the great rivers — 
the wide plains — the splendid lakes — the lonely forests — 
the sublime mountains — that all these things stole into and 
became a part of their being, and they grew great as the 
country in which they lived. They bf^gan to hate the 
narrow, contracted views of Europe. They were educated 
by their surroundings, and every little colony had to be, 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 5 1 

to ci certain extent, a republic. The kings of the old 
world endeavored to parcel out this laud to their favorites. 
But there were too many Indians. There was too much 
courage required for them to take and keep it, and so men 
had to come here who were dissatisfied with the old country 
— who were dissatisfied with England, dissatisfied with 
France, with Germany, with Ireland and Holland. The 
kings' favorites stayed at home. Men came here for liberty, 
and on account of certain principles they entertained and 
held dearer than life. And they were willing to work, 
wilHng to fell the forests, to fight the savages, willing to go 
through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new 
country, of a new land ; and the consequence was that our 
country was settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by 
men who had opinions of their own, and were willing to 
live in the wild forests for the sake of expressing those 
opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees, rocks, 
and savage men. The best blood of the old world came to 
the new. 

THE RISE OF THE REPUBLIC — LIBERTY AND TOLERATION. 

When they first came over they did not have a great deal 
of political philosophy, nor the best ideas of liberty. We 
might as well tell the truth. When the puritans first came 
they were narrow. They did not understand what liberty 
meant - what religious liberty, what political liberty, was ; 
but they found out in a few years. There was one feeling 
amono: them that rises to their eternal honor like a white 

CD 

shaft to the clouds — they were in favor of universal educa- 
tion. Wherever they went they built school houses, intro- 
duced books, and ideas of literature. They believed that 
every man should know how to read and how to write, and 
should find out all that his capacity allowed him to compre- 
hend. That is the glory of the Puritan fathers. 



52 COL. ingersoll's 

Tney forgot in a little while what they had suffered, and 
they forgot to apply the principle of universal liberty — of 
toleration. Some of the colonies did not forget it, and I 
want to give credit where credit should be given. The 
Catholics of Maryland were the first people on the new 
continent to declare universal religious toleration. Let this 
be remembered to their eternal honor. Let it be remem- 
bered to the disgrace of the Protestant government of Eng- 
land, that it caused this grand law to be repealed. And to 
the honor and credit of the Catholics of Maryland let it be 
remembered, that the moment they got back into powei 
they re-enacted the old law. The Baptists of Rhode Island^ 
also, led by Roger Williams, were in favor of universal 
religious liberty. 

Ko American should fail to honor Roger Williams. He 
was the first grand advocate of the liberty of the soul. lie 
was in favor of the eternal divorce of Church and State. 
So far as I know, he was the only man at that time in this 
country wlio was in i'avor of real religious liberty. While 
the Catholics of Maryland declared in favor of religious 
toleration^ they had no idea of religious liberty. They 
would not allow any one to call in question the doctrine of 
the trinity, or the inspiration of the scriptures. They stood 
ready with branding-iron and gallows to burn and choke 
out of man the idea that he had a right to think and to 
express his thoughts. 

So many religions met in our country — so many theories 
and dogmas came in contact — so many follies, mistakes and 
stupidities became acquainted with each other, that religion 
began to fall somewhat into dispute. Besides this, the 
question of a new nation began to take precedence of all 
others. 

The people were too much interested in this world to 
quarrel about the next. The preacher was lost in the 



THREE GREAT LECTURES. 63 

patriot. The bible was read to find passages against kings. 
Everybody was discussing the rights of man. Farmers 
and mechanics suddenly became statesmen, and in every 
shop and cabin nearly every question was asked and 
answered. 

During these years of political excitement, the interest in 
religion abated to that degree that a common purpose ani- 
mated men of all sects and creeds. 

At last our fathers became tired of being colonists— tired 
of writing and reading and signing petitions, and present- 
ing them, on their bended knees, to an idiot king. They 
began to have an aspiration to form a new nation, to be 
citizens of a new republic instead of subjects to an old 
monarchv. They had the idea— the Puritans, the Catho- 
Hcs, the "^Episcopalians, the Baptists, the Quakers, and a 
few Free-Thinkers, all had the idea— that they would like 
to form a new nation. 

Now, do not understand that all of our fathers were in 
favor of independence. Do not understand that they were all 
like Jefferson; that they were all like Adams or Lee; that 
they were all like Thomas Paine or John Hancock. There 
were thousands and thousands of them who were opposed 
to American independence. There were thousands and 
thousands who -said : "When you say men are created 
equal, it is a lie ; when you say the political power resides 
in the ^reat body of the people, it is false." Thousands 
- and thousands of them said : ''We prefer Great Britain." 
But the men who were in favor of independence, the men 
who knew that a new nation must be born, went on full of 
hope and courage, and nothing could daunt or stop or stay 
the heroic, fearless few. 

They met in Philadelphia, and the resolution was moved 
by Lee, of Virginia, that the colonies ought to be inde- 



54 COL. ingersoll's 

pendent States, and ought to dissolve their political connec- 
tion with Great Britain. 

They made up their minds that a new nation must be 
formed. All nations had been, so to speak, the wards of 
some church. The religious idea as to the source of power 
had been at the foundation of all governments, and had 
been the bane and curse of man. 

Happily for us, there was no church strong enough to 
dictate to the rest. Fortunately for us, the colonists not 
only, but the colonies differed widely in their religious 
views. There were the Puritans who hated the Episco- 
palians, and Episcopalians who hated the Catholics, and 
the Catholics who hated both, while the Quakers held them 
all in contempt. There they were, of every sort, and color, 
and kind, and how was it that they came together ? They 
had a common aspiration. They wanted to form a new 
nation. More than that, most of them cordially hated 
Great Britain ; and they pledged each other to forget these 
religious preiudices, for a time at least, and agreed that 
there should be only one religion until they got through, 
and that was the religion of patriotism. They solemnly 
agreed that the new nation should not belong to any. partic- 
ular church, but that it should secure the rights of all. 

Our fathers founded the first secular government that was 
ever founded in this world. Recollect that. The first sec- 
ular government; the first government that said every 
church has exactly the same rights, and no more ; every 
religion has the same rights and no more. In other words 
our fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the 
genius, to know that no church should be allowed to have 
a sword ; that it should be allowed only to exert its moral 
influence. 

You might as well have a government united by force 
with Art, or with Poetry, or with Oratory, as with Relig- 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 55" 

ion. Religion should have the influence upon mankind 
that its goodness, that its morality, its justice, its charity, 
its reason and its argument give it, and no more. Keligion 
should have the eifectupon mankind that it necessarily has, 
and no more. 

So our fcithers said: "We shall form a secular govern- 
ment, and under the flag with which we are going to enrich 
the air, we will allow every man to worship God as he 
thinks best." They said : " Religion is an individual thing 
between each man and his Creator, and he can worship as 
he pleases and as he desires." And why did they do this? 
The history of the world warned them that the liberty of 
man was not safe in the clutch and grasp of any church. 
They had read of and seen the thumb-screws, the racks and 
the dungeons of the inquisition. They knew all about the 
hypocrisy of the olaen time. They knew that the church 
had stood side by side wit' 'he throne; that the high 
priests were hypocrites, and iht.t the kings v/ere robo^rs. 
They also knew that if they gave to any church ;;ower, *"■ 
would corrupt the best churi'h in the world. And so the 
said that power must not rjt-ide in a church, nor in a sect, 
but power must be wherevei humanity is — in the great body 
of the people. And the officers and servants of the people 
must be responsible to tuem. And so I say again, as I 
said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the profound- 
est, the bravest political document that ever was written 
and signed by man. 

They turned, as I tell you, everything squarely about. 
They derived all their authority from the people. They 
did away forever with the theological idea of government. 

And what more did they say ? They said that whenever 
the rulers abused this authority, this power, incapable of 
destruction, returned to the people. How did they come 
to say this ? I will tell you ; they were pushed into ?* 



56 COL. INGERSOLLS 

How ? They felt that they were oppressed ; and whenever 
a man feels that he is the subject of injustice, his perception 
of right and wrong is wonderfully quickened. 

Nobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not be- 
lieve in the writ of habeas corpus. Nobody ever suffered 
wrongfully without instantly having ideas of justice. 

And they be£;an to inquire what rights the king of Great 
Britain had. They began to search for the charter of his 
autllorit3^ They began to investigate and dig down to the 
bed-rock upon whicli society must be ibanded, and when 
they got there, forced there, too, by their oppressors, forced 
against their own prejudices and education, they found at 
the bottom of things, not lords, not nobles, not pulpits, not 
thrones, but humanity, and the rights of men. 

And so they said, we are men ; we are men. 

A NATION. 

They found out they were men. And the next thing 
they said was : " We will be free men; we are weary of 
being colonists ; we are tired of being subjects ; we are men ; 
and these colonies ought to be states ; and these states 
( ught to be a nation ; and that nation ouglit to drive the 
last British soldier into the sea." And so they signed that 
brave declaration of independence. 

I thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart 
for signing that sublime declaration. I thank them for their 
courage — for their patriotism — for their wisdom — for the 
splendid confidence in themselves and in the human race. 
I thank them for wiiat they were, and f )r what we are — 
for v;liat they did, and for what we have received — for what 
they suffered, and for what we enjo^^ 

What would we have been if we had remained colonists 
and subjects? What would we have been to-day? No- 
bodies — ready to get down on our knees and crawl in the 
very dust at the sight of somebody that was supposed to 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 57 

have in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of 
that mailed marauder — William the Conqueror. 

They signed that declaration of independence, although 
they knew that it would produce a long, terrible, and 
bloody war. They looked forward and saw poverty, depri- 
vation, gloom, and death. But they also saw, on the wrecked 
clouds of war, the beautiful bow of freedom. 

These grand men were enthusiasts ; and the world has 
only been raised by enthusiasts. In every country there 
have been a few who have given a national aspiration to 
the people. The enthusiasts ef 1770 were the builders and 
framers of this great and splendid government ; and they 
were the men who saw, although others did not, the golden 
fringe of the mantle of glory, that will finally cover this 
world. They knew, they felt, they believed they would 
give a new constellation to the political heavens — that they 
would make the Americans a grand people — grand as the 
continent upon which they lived. 

The war commenced. There was little money and less 
credit. The new nation had but few friends. To a great 
extent, each soldier of freedom had to clothe and feed liim- 
self. He was poor and pure — brave and good, and so he 
went to the fields of death to fight for the rights of man. 

What did the soldier leave when he went? He left his 
wife and children. 

Did he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by 
civilization, in the repose of law, in the security of a great 
and powerful republic ? 

No. He left his wife and children on the edge, on the 
frin^i^e of the boundless forest, in which crouched and crept 
the red savage, who was at that time the ally of the still 
more savage Briton. He left his wife to defend herself, 
and he left the prattling babes to be defended by their 
mother and by nature. The mother made the living ; she 



5S COL. ingersoll's 

planted the corn and the potatoes, and hoed them in the 
sun, raised the children, and in the dark night told them 
about their brave father, and the "sacred cause," she told 
them that in a little while the wai would be over, and father 
would come back covered with honor and glory. 

Think of the women, of the sweet children who listened 
for the footsteps of the dead — who waited through the sad 
and desolated years for tl^e dear ones who never came. 

LIBERTY OR DEATH. 

The soldiers of 1776 did not march away with music and 
banners. They went in silence, looked at and gazed after 
by eyes filled with tears. They went to meet, not an equal, 
but a superior — to fight five times their number — to make a 
desperate stand — to stop the advance of the enemy, and 
then, when their ammunition gave out, seek the protection 
of rocks, of rivers, and of hills. 

Let me say here : The greatest test of courage on the 
earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. That army is 
the bravest that can be whipped the greatest number of 
times and fight again. 

Over the entire territory, so to speak, then settled by our 
forefathers, they were driven again and again. Now and 
then they would meet the English with something like equal 
numbers, and then the eagle of victory would proudly perch 
upon the stripes and stars. And so they went czi ?«> best 
cney could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dar£ 
and somber gloom of Y alley Forge. 

There were very few hearts then beneath that flag that 
did not begin to think that the struggle was useless ; that 
ail the blood and treasure had been spent and shed in vain. 
But there were some men gifted with that wonderful proph- 
ecy that fulfills itself, and with that wonderful magnetic 
power that makes heroes of everybody they couio ii: contact 
with. And so our fathers went through the gloom of that ter- 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. Sq 

rible time, and still fought on. Brave men wrote g.-and 
words, cheering the despondent; brave men did brave 
deeds ; the rich man gave his wealth ; the poor man gave 
his life, until at last, by the victory of Yorktown, the old 
banner won its place in the air, and became glorious forever. 

Seven long years of war — fighting for what? For the 
principle that all men are created equal — a truth that no- 
body ever disputed except a scoundrel ; nobody in the 
entire history of this world. No man ever denied that 
truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never, 
never, and never will. What else were they fighting for ? 
Simply that in America every man should have a right to 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nobody ever 
denied that except a villian ; never, never. It has been 
denied by kings — they were thieves. It has been denied 
by statesmen — they were liars. It has been denied by 
priests, by clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops and by 
popes — they were hypocrites. 

What else were they fighting for? For the idea that all 
political power is vested in the great body of the people. 
They make all the money ; do all the work. They plow 
the land ; cut down the forests ; they produce everything 
that is produced. Then who shall say what shall be done 
with what is produced except the producer ? Is it the non- 
producing thief, sitting on a throne, surrounded by vermin? 

The history of civilization is the history of the slow and 
painful enfranchisement of the human race. In the olden 
times the family was a monarchy, the father beino the mon- 
arch. The mother and children were the veriest slaves. 
The will of the lather was the supreme law. He had tht 
p^wer of life and death. It took thousands of years to civil- 
ize this father, thousands of years to make the condition ol 
wife and mother and children even tolerable. A few fam- 
ilies constituted a tribe ; the tribe had a chief; the chief 



6o Col. ingersolls 

was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a nation ; the nation was 
governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. A strong na- 
tion robbed, phmdered, and took captive tlie weaker ones. 
This was the commencement of human slavery. 

THE COLONKL GROWS ELOQUENT. 

It is not possible for the Iniman imagination to conceive 
of the horrors of slavery. It has left no possible wrong un- 
committed, no possible crime unperpetrated. It has been 
practised and defended by all natit)ns in some form. It has 
been u[>held by all rehgions. It has been defended by 
nearly every pulpit. From the profits derived from the 
slave trade churches liave been built, cathedrals reared and 
priests paid. Slavery has been blessed by bishop, by car- 
diiud and by pope. It has received the sanction of states- 
men, of kings, of queens. Monarchs have shared in the 
profits. Clergymen have taken their part of the spoil, re- 
citing passages of scripture in its defense at the same time, 
and judges have taken their portion in the name of equity 
and law. 

Oidy a few years ago our ancestors were slaves. Only 
a few years ago they passed with and belonged to the soil, 
like coal under it and rocks on it. Only a few years ago 
they were treated like beasts of burden, worse far than we 
treat our animals at the present day. Only a few years ago 
it was a crime in England for a nuin to have a bible in his 
house, a crime for which men were hanged, and their bodies 
afterwards burned. Only a few years ago fathers could and 
did sell their children. Only a few years ago our ancestors 
were not allowed to speak or write their thoughts — that 
being a crime. As soon as our ancestors began to get free 
they began to enslave others. With an inconsistency that 
defies explanation, they practiced u])on others the same out- 
]-ages that had been perpetrated upon them. As soon as 
white slavery began to be abolished, black slavery com- 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 6t 

menced. In tliis int'amous traffic nearly every nation of 
Europe embarked. 

The other day there came shoemakers, pf)tters, workers 
in wood and iron, from Europe, and they were received in 
tlie city of New York as though they had been princes. 
They had been sent by the gi-eat republic of France to ex- 
amine into the arts and manufactures of the great republic 
of America. They looked a thousand times better to me 
than the Edward Alberts and Albert Edwards — the royal 
.vermin, that live on the body politic. And I would think 
much more of our government if it would fete and feast 
them, instead of wining and dining the imbeciles of a 
royal line. 

WHAT WE WANT TO-DAY. 

What we want to-day is what C)ur fathers wrote down. 
They did not attain to their ideal ; we approach it nearer, 
l)ut liave not readied it yet. We want, not only the inde- 
])endence of a state, not only the independence of a nation, 
but st^mething far more glorious — the absolute independence 
of the individual. That is what we want. I want it so 
that I, one of the children of Nature, can stand on an 
equality with the rest; that 1 can say this is my air, my 
sunshine, tny earth, and I have a right to live, and hope, 
and aspire, and labor, and enjoj^ the fruit of that labor, as 
njuch as any individual^ or any nation on the face of the gloi)e. 

The French convention gave the best definition of liberty 
I have ever read: '' The liberty of one citizen ceases only 
where the liberty of another citizen commences." I know 
of no better definition. I ask you to-day to make a dec- 
laration of individual independence. And if you are indepen- 
dent, l)e just. Allow everybody else to make his declaration 
of individual independence. AP jOur wife, allow your 
husband, allow your children to make theirs. It is a grand 
thing to be the owner of yourself. It is a grand thing to 



62 COL. ingersoll's 

protect the rights of others. It is a sublime thing to be 
free and just. 

Only a few days ago I stood in Independence Hall— in 
that little room where was signed the immortal paper. A 
little room, like any other; and it did not seem possible 
that from that room went forth ideas, like cherubim and 
seraphim, spreadin.^ their wings over a continent, and 
touching, as with holy tire, the hearts of men. 

In a few moments I was in the park, where are gathered 
the accomplishments of a century. Our fathers never 
dreamed of the things I saw. There were hundreds of loco- 
motives, with their nerves of steel and breath of flame — 
every kind of machine, with whirling wheels and the myriad 
thoughts of men that have been wrought in iron, brass and 
steel. And going out from one little building were wires 
in the air, stretching to every civilized nation, and they 
could send a shining messenger in a moment to any part of 
the world, and it would go sweeping under the waves of the 
sea with thoughts and words within its glowing heart I 
saw all that had been achieved by this nation, and I wished 
that the signers of the Declaration — the soldiers of the Revo- 
lution — could see what a century of freedom has produced. 
I wished they could see tlie fields we cultivate — the rivers 
we navigate — the railroads running over the Allegbanies, 
far into what was then tlie unknown forest — on over the 
broad prairies — on over the vast plains — away over the 
mountains of the West, to the Golden Gate of the Pacific. 

All this is the result of a hundred years of freedom. Are 
you not more than glad that in 1776 was announced the 
sublime princi[)le that political power resides with the peo- 
ple? that our fathers then made up their minds neveruiore 
to be colonists and subjects, but that they would bo free 
and independent citizens of America. I will not name any 
of the grand men who fought for liberty. ^11 should be 



THREE GREAT SPEECHES. 63 

named, or none. I feel that the unknown soldier who was 
shot down without even his name being remembered — who 
was included only in a report of "a hundred killed," or 
''a hundred missing," nobody knowing even tlie number 
that attached to his august corpse — is entitled to as deep 
and heartfelt thanks as the titled leader who fell at the head 
ui' the host. 

THE GRAND FUTURE OF AMERICA. 

Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on 
tlie golden threshold of the sc^cond, I ask. Will the second 
century be as grand as the first? I believe it will, because 
we are growing more and more humane ; I believe there is 
more human kindness, and a greater desire to help one an- 
other, than in all the world besides. 

"We must i)rogress. We are just at the commencement 
of invention. The steam engine — the telegraph — these are 
but the toys with which science has been amused. There 
will be grander things; there will be wider and higher cul- 
ture — a grander standard of character, of literature and art. 

We have now half as many millions of people as we have 
years. We are getting more real solid sense. We are 
writing and reading more books; we are struggling more 
and more to get at the philosophy of life, of things — trying 
more and more to answer the questions of the eternal 
Sphinx. We are looking in every direction — investigating ; 
in short, we are thinking and working. 

The w^orld has changed. I have had the supreme pleasure 
of seeing a man — once a slave — sitting in the seat of his 
former master in the Congress of the United States. I 
have had that pleasure, and when I saw it my eyes were 
tilled with tears, I felt that we had carried out the Declara- 
tion of Independence, that we have given reality to it, and 
breathed the breatii of life into its every word. I felt that 
our flag would float over and protect the colored man and 



64 Col. INGERSOLL S 

his little children — standing straight in the sun, just the 
same as though he were white and worth a million. 

All who stand beneath our banner are free. Ours is the 
only flag that has in reahtj written up^m it: Liberty, 
Fraternity, Equality — the three grandest words in all tlie 
languages of men. Libertj : Give to every man the fruit 
of his own labor — the labor of his hand and of his brain. 
Fraternity : Every man in the right is my brother. Equal- 
ity: The rights of all are equal. JSTo race, no color, no 
previous condition, can change tlie rights of men. The 
Declaration of Independence has at last been carried out in 
letter and in spirit. The second century will be grander 
than the first. To-day the black man looks n])on his child 
and says : The avenues of distinction are (^pen to you — up:)n 
your brow may fall the civic wreath. We are celebrating 
the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad shout 
of a free people, the anthem of a grand nation, commencing 
at the Atlantic, is following tlie sun to the Pacific, across a 
continent of happy homes. W'e are a great people. Three 
millions have increased to fifty — thirteen states to thirty- 
eight. We have better ho:bes, and more of the conveni- 
ences of life than any other people upon the face of the 
globe. The farmers of our country live better tlian did 
the kings and princes two hundred years ago — and they 
have twice as nmch sense and heart. Liberty iiid labor 
have given us all. Remember that all men have equal 
rights. Remember that the man who acts best his part — 
who loves his friends the best — is most willing to help 
others — truest to the obligation — who has the best heart — 
the most feeling — the deepest sympathies — and who freely 
gives to others the rights that he claims f )r himself, is the 
best man. We have disfranchised the aristocrats of the 
air and have given one country to mankind. 



COL. INGERSOLL S FUNERAL ORATION. 



65 




Col. IngersoU's Funeral Oration at His Brother's 
Grave. 

Tlie funeral of Hon. Ebon C. Ingersoll, brother of Col. 
Robert G. Ingersoll, took |)lace at his residence in Wash- 
ington, D. C, June 2, 1879. The ceremonies were ex- 
tremely simple, consisting merely of viewing the remains 
by relatives and friends, and a funeral oration by Col. 
IngersoU. A large number of distinguished gentlemen 
were ])resent. Soon after Mr. IngersoU began to read his 
eloquent characterization of the dead, his eyes filled with 
tears. He tried to hide them behind his eye-glasses, but 
he could not do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the 
dead man's coffin in uncontrollable grief. It was after 



56 COL. INGERSOLLS 

some delay and the greatest eftbrts at self-mastery, that 
Ool. Ingersoll was able to finish reading his address, which 
was as follows : 

My Friends : 1 am going to do that which the dead often 
promised he would do for me. The loved and loving 
brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's 
morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still 
were falling towards the West. He had not passed on 
hfe's highway the stone that marks the highest point, but 
being weary for a moment he laid down by the wayside, 
and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless 
sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love 
with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence 
and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best, just in 
he happiest,' sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager 
winds are kissing ever}' sail, to dash against the unseen 
rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar a sunken ship. 
For, whether in mid-sea or among the breakers of the far- 
ther shore, a wreck must mark at last the end of each and 
. 11. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich 
, with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at 
s close, become a tragedy, as sad, and deep, and dark 
s can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and 
eath. This brave and tender man in every storm of 
life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and 
Rower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed 
the heights and left all superstitions far below, while on 
is forehead fell the golden dawning of a grander day. 
•^e loved the beautiful, and was with color, form and mu- 
c touched to tears. He sided with the weak, and with 
a, willing hand gave alms; with loyal heart and with the 
parest hand he faithfully discharged all public trusts. He 
was a worshipper of liberty and a friend of the oppressed. 
> thousand times I have heard him quote the words: 



i 



FUNERAL ORATION. 67 

"For justice all place a temple and all season summer." 
He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the 
only torch, justice the only worshipper, humanity the only 
religion, and love the priest. 

He added to the sura of human joy, and were every one 
for whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to 
his grave he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of 
flowers. Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren 
peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond 
the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the 
echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the 
un replying dead there comes no word ; but in the night of 
death hope seus a star and listening love can hear the rus- 
tle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistak- 
ing the approach of death for the return of health, whis- 
pered with his latest breath, "I am better now." Let us 
believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas and tears and fears 
that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. 
And now, to you who have been chosen from among the 
many men he loved to do the last sad office for the dead, 
we give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain our love. 
There was — there is — no gentler, stronger, manlier man. 




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